[Ads-l] "anachronym" redux

[Laurence Horn]

> On Mar 12, 2024, at 12:18 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 

 In the other direction, the locus classicus (especially if want a Latin reference!) for anachronism: the use of “clock” in Julius Caesar:
Cassius, asked for the time by fellow-conspirator Brutus, replies “The clock has stricken three”.  No striking clocks (as opposed to water clocks, sundials, and the like) were available until sometime in the Middle Ages.

LH

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