[Ads-l] "anachronym" redux

[Ben Zimmer]

Benjamin Dreyer has a column in today's Washington Post about
"anachronyms":

---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/12/evolving-word-meanings-usage-anachronyms-subway-token-subtweet/
Given that the word now has become a generic term used on other
social-media platforms (hello, my friends at Bluesky), I suspect that
"subtweet" will join the ranks of what are known as anachronyms: words that
are used "in an anachronistic way, by referring to something in a way that
is appropriate only for a former or later time."
That’s the way Wikipedia defines them, which will have to suffice for now,
because the word is too new to have worked its way into dictionaries. Maybe
when it does arrive, lexicographers will have identified its originator;
linguist Ben Zimmer is often credited online, but he says he doubts he was
the coiner.
---

I've been credited with coining "anachronym" because I used it in an
interview with Adrienne LaFrance of The Atlantic back in Mar. 2014, for a
piece she wrote about the word "selfie":

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/when-did-group-pictures-become-selfies/359556

But as I told Benjamin Dreyer, the term didn't originate with me. Going
through the ADS-L archive, I see that I must have picked it up from W.
Brewer, who hasn't posted here for a few years. Here's the earliest post
using the word that I can find, from Mar. 10, 2012:

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2012-March/117139.html

Anyhow, credit where credit is due.

--bgz

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