[Ads-l] "anachronym" redux

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

In a posting dated April 2, 2012 W. Brewer asserted his coinage of
"anachronym". This supports Ben Zimmer's location of the earliest
posting of the term by Brewer dated March 10, 2012.

Archive: American Dialect Society mailing list
Subject: cathartic = 'experiencing catharsis' PLUS free balonus!
Handle: W Brewer brewerwa at GMAIL.COM
Timestamp: Mon Apr 2 05:49:12 UTC 2012
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2012-April/118105.html

[Begin excerpt]
According to Wilson's statement, English NAUSEA has completely lost
its association with the sea, and hence fits my definition of an
ANACHRONYM (my coinage).
[End excerpt]

Brewer suggests in the excerpt above that "nausea" is an anachronym,
but it seems that the modern sense of "nausea" evolved via
generalization. The original linkage to seasickness (Greek nausia) is
not obsolete.

Garson

On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:57 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.
>
> --bgz
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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