[Ads-l] "anachronym" redux

[Laurence Horn]

> On Mar 12, 2024, at 8:40 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 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

Right; I always assumed the primal instance of “noise” (another cognate, along with “naut(ical)”) was that of sailors throwing up overboard.

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

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