"anachronism" and the OED

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Tue Jul 12 14:09:09 UTC 2011


Sense 2 of "anachronism" is

"2. Anything done or existing out of date; hence, anything which was
proper to a former age, but is, or, if it existed, would be, out of
harmony with the present; also called a practical anachronism. Also
transf. of persons."

The first clause is general, but the second ("hence ...") seems to
restrict anachronisms to things *correct* of a former age but not for
the present.  Should this sense not also include the notion of
something *incorrect* of a former age, because it is not consistent
with that former age?  (Sometimes -- but not always! -- occurring
because the thing is true of the present age but has wrongly been
applied to the past.)

For example, a film of "Lady Audley's Secret" (1860s) has one
character referring to another as a "golddigger".  That's a word in
harmony (considerably, but politics aside) with the present, but not
in use in the 1860s.  Is that not an anachronism?

In fact, one quotation in the OED seems to have the sense I find not included:
1864    Round Table 18 June 4/3   She gives them phrases and words
which..had their beginning long since that period, and are in fact
linguistic anachronisms.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list