An anachronism is something that doesn’t fit, time-wise or date-wise — a chronological inconsistency.
It derives from the Greek “ana” (against) and “chronos” (time). It’s something appearing in, or being attributed to, a period other than that to which it belongs.
Visualize, for example, a replica of that famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware. Something isn’t quite right: Looking closely, you see the copier has introduced a change: Washington is holding a cell phone to his ear!
That’s an anachronism. All sorts of things can be anachronisms, but they most commonly tend to be figures of speech. For example, slang expressions that are wildly old-fashioned.
A few years ago, someone mentioned to me that the greeting “Howdy!” is rarely used any more, being badly dated. I said, “Good grief! Why didn’t anyone let me know? I use ‘Howdy’ all the time.” To which another friend replied, “I hate to tell you this, Gary, but ‘Good grief!’ is out of date too.”
Anachronisms are the bane of historical fiction writers. It’s devilishly easy, without realizing, to slip some modern, trendy expression into dialogue that’s occurring supposedly centuries ago.
In the movie Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, there’s a moment when Abe tells an associate, “I like my chances…” (to achieve something-or-other). This jarred me: It seems highly unlikely Lincoln ever heard or used that currently-done-to-death figure of speech.
The same problem bedevils writers of science fiction – with regard both to speech and technology. In Isaac Asimov’s original Foundation novel, his Hari Seldon character at one point whipped out a slide rule. (Is any reader here old enough to remember those?) I noticed that in a later reprinting, this was changed to an electronic calculator.
If you’re a writer, and you want to avoid usages that are anachronistic (or may become so), one way is to study the dialogue of Star Trek. I’ve noticed that its script writers and editors make a studied effort to avoid time-bound speech.
Maybe they don’t always succeed — I doubt many of us do. But if we want our prose to remain intelligible 50 or 100 years from now, it’s good to practice.
(This article is part of my series on words that are #worth1000pictures.)
12 responses to “One Word: Anachronism”
Dear Gary,
Your article reminds me of how much of an anachronism I am—useless, of no value to the present generation. Its cultural noise drowns out whatever meanings I attempt to express by the usage of once commonplace idioms. More and more, daily language seems to have originated from dark alleyways, devoid of beauty, with desperate phrasings and words bursting with overflowing anger that dim the fragile glow of the human spirit. What’s wrong with ‘Good grief’? It is a statement that expresses puzzlement: sometimes resignation. It’s non-judgmental. It doesn’t cast anyone or anything in to the environs of Hell. It infers that the utterer is still open to other possibilities. It denotes a relative innocence. At least to me. May I curse the darkness?
No, because “curse the darkness” is an anachronism. ≧◔◡◔≦ Okay, on second thought, James, go ahead! It’s all right. Seriously. I know they say it’s better to light a candle and all that. But doesn’t Dylan Thomas advise the contrary? “Do not go gently into that good night … Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Maybe these choices aren’t mutually exclusive. (Wait, is “mutually exclusive” anachronistic? Hope not…) Be that as it may, you are far from “useless” to this or any other generation. It may take some of them time to realize your value, but figure it out they will.
And thanks for your trenchant analysis of “Good grief!” (Wait, is “trenchant” an anachronism? Oh, never mind.)
Once I happened in on a bunch of kids who were performing a play, “Captains of Consultation” based on my book. Having been encouraged to write a version for youth, I put pen to paper (another anachronism) and had two cousins, a boy and girl, kick a rock and underneath they discovered the UHJ compilation on consultation. They also discovered a magic carpet and could fly off to distant problems which were solved by consultation. I wrote about three brilliant chapters when I discovered how hopelessly outdated my language was for today’s youth. I also realized that youth language changes so fast that if something was written up-to-date, it would be dated before it could be printed. So ended my venture into a fascinating and informative tale.
And yet, John, the kids you “happened upon” were performing a play based on your wonderful book about consultation. Clearly they had read and understood that, even though you didn’t write it specifically for kids.
My tentative guess is that your writing is unintelligible to kids when and only when you are trying to write like a kid. Your normal writing voice, however, is something people of any age can follow. Maybe that is what you should focus on. Or at least start from and build upon?
Another anachronism in “Lincoln” the “Republicans” were the progressives and the “Democrats” were the obstructionists.
True enough. Of course, today’s Republicans would insist this is still true. That Republicans, by pressing forward their vision of the world, are the true progressives, while the Democrat “resistance” has nothing to offer except obstruction. Obstruct the wall, obstruct immigration reform, obstruct tax relief, obstruct business freedom and initiative by imposing needless climate-change regulations, and so forth.
Ana Stasis is translated as resurrection. Ana = rise. Stasis = a fixed condition.
Paul said that he knew from personal experience that resurrection was real since, years after Jesus had been killed, Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus & even spoke with him. Paul named a list of other people who had also seen the resurrected Jesus. Paul then referred to himself in this passage as someone who was born EK-TROMA. EK = out. TROMA = time.
Unlike the Apostles who had known Jesus when he was alive… Paul never met Jesus. Paul became a Christian years after Jesus’ death. This is what he meant when he said that he was born out of time.
Paul describes this time when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus as a “heavenly vision”… OURANIO OPTASIAN.
Wonderful insights, Joel. I hadn’t thought about Paul’s being “born out of time” (ek-troma) as an example of anachronism. But clearly Paul saw himself as embodying that very concept.
Sometimes I hear Baha’is rail against Paul for supposedly “physicalizing” the Christian concept of resurrection — transforming it from a spiritual to a purely literal thing. This misunderstanding is so needless: Paul, throughout his writings, treats resurrection as a mystical reality. He’s extremely clear about this, and really is a Baha’i’s best friend and ally when the topic comes up.
It seems that a ‘vision’ will take the beholder “out of time”…every time. I believe this phenomenon is occurring today among many Baha’i’s. It certainly occurred when believers were allowed to be present when Baha’ullah was receiving His Revelation; afterwards they could not remember which shoes and cloaks belonged to them.
This points to the nature and reality of “time” itself. The Writings and Teachings of the Manifestations are all coming from another time and place, relative to human perceptions and understandings.
(Gary, I just found this blog)
James, regarding your having “just found this blog” — your situation is fairly typical, but odd: You have been a subscriber to the blog for quite some time. That, however, often means getting its posts by email, without ever needing to visit it on the web. And I’ve found I have a number of subscribers who regularly read the emails, but forget that there is a blog on the web!
This can happen in several ways. One is that someone visits on the web, subscribes there (using the subscription box), then gets used to seeing the emails but forgets where they originated. Plus, some folks subscribe to the emails without ever actually having seen the blog. This can happen if (for example) the blog newsletter comes up in a conversation I’m having with someone, and that person asks me to add their name to the recipient list, and I do. (This may be how you started getting the emails; I forget!)
Be that as it may, if one clicks the article title in an email, or the comment form embedded there, or any of several other links, you’ll always be taken directly to the blog on the web. I like these visits for several reasons. Not the least is that visitors can see all of the other articles posted there, and thus perhaps find other useful content. Always a plus!
Good grief, I say phooey on anachronisms. I think they are charming. What bothers me is when I hear someone introducing a new phrase they never used before. This was when I heard my 90 year old father start saying “take care” when leaving a conversation because he heard others saying it. He finally quit, thank goodness. However I know I’m somewhat guilty too as I will use some texting abbreviations like LOL. I laughed at that commercial a few years ago of a mom trying to speak like that to her daughter getting the BFF, ect. tongue tied. We should all just speak how it feels natural. BTW I enjoyed reading everyone’s comments above. L8R and Bee Well (those are both mine.)
Great points all, Neranza. What strikes me as especially insightful is your “feels natural” criterion. If we use words in a way that feels natural to us, then readers/listeners can sense that. If we don’t, they sense that, too. Even if the literal words are outwardly the same. Human beings instinctively recoil from artificiality.
I, too, find anachronisms charming. At least when there is no pretense associated with them. But it’s one thing if you and I are conversing, and I say “Howdy” or “Good grief!” It’s another if I’m writing dialogue for fictional characters thousands of years in the future or the past, and I’ve got them speaking in trendy modern expressions no one was using two years ago, and won’t be using two years from now. That’s anachronistic, and not necessarily in a good way.
The “not necessarily” disclaimer is my way of acknowledging that there may be a case, in fiction, for sometimes writing dialogue in this way. Like most any language, English from hundreds or thousands of years ago was riddled with time-bound idioms we wouldn’t understand today. Even if we keep our dialogue carefully neutral, it will remain “anachronistic” in the sense that it won’t really sound anything like the speech of that era. Ditto for dialogue set thousands of years in the future. So might we not just as well translate it all into current speech? Even if that means using trendy current expressions?
I have an Isaac Asimov novel in which a character speaks of “putting the kibosh” on something. It’s set 50,000 years in the future. I seriously doubt that English then, in the unlikely event it still even exists, will be anything any of us would comprehend. And I doubt that “kibosh” will be part of anyone’s vocabulary. But there will be some way of expressing the idea of halting an undesired outcome. Only by using anachronisms could Asimov have conveyed both the tone and substance of his fictional conversation.