Recency illusion

The Recency illusion is the belief that a word, meaning, grammatical construction or phrase is of recent origin when it is in fact of long-established usage. The term was invented by Arnold Zwicky, a linguist at Stanford University. [Intensive and Quotative ALL: something old, something new, John R. Rickford, Thomas Wasow, Arnold Zwicky, Isabelle Buchstaller, "American Speech" 2007 82(1):3-31; Duke University Press ("what Arnold Zwicky (2005) has dubbed the "recency illusion," whereby people think that linguistic features they’ve only recently noticed are in fact new").] According to Zwicky, the illusion is caused by selective attention. [ [http://158.130.17.5/~myl/languagelog/archives/002386.html Language Log: Just between Dr. Language and I] ]

For example, it is widely believed that the term "truthiness" was coined by Stephen Colbert when in fact it was recorded in 1824. [1824 J. J. GURNEY in Braithwaite Mem. (1854) I. 242 Everyone who knows her is aware of her truthiness, truthy, a., Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition 1989, Oxford University Press, retrieved from OED Online, July 18, 2008]

Other examples that are often used as examples of the recency illusion include:
* "Singular they" - the use of "they" to reference a singular antecedent. (Example: "Everyone brought their own lunch.") Although this usage is often cited as a modern invention, it is found in Jane Austen and Shakespeare.
* The phrase "between you and I", which likewise can be found in Early Modern English.

See also

* Adolescent illusion
* Antiquity illusion
* Infrequency illusion
* Out-group illusion

References

External links

* [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626302.300-the-word-recency-illusion.html New Scientist article] (subscription only; hard copy at "New Scientist", 17 November 2007 p. 60)