The recency illusion is the mistaken belief, held by someone who has only recently become aware of a long-established phenomenon, that the phenomenon itself must therefore be of recent origin. The linguist Arnold Zwicky of Stanford University coined the term, most often applying it to words, meanings, phrases and grammatical constructions that speakers wrongly assume are new, though he defined the illusion more broadly as simply the belief that things a person has noticed only recently are in fact recent, and he attributed the illusion to selective attention.
Facts
Core ClaimThe recency illusion is the belief or impression, on the part of someone who has only recently become aware of a long-established phenomenon, that the phenomenon itself must be of recent origin. 1 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Sources
1. Wikipedia: Recency illusion
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph 1
The recency illusion is the belief or impression, on the part of someone who has only recently become aware of a long-established phenomenon, that the phenomenon itself must be of recent origin.
- History section, Arnold Zwicky coined the term (2005)
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
The recency illusion is the belief or impression, on the part of someone who has only recently become aware of a long-established phenomenon, that the phenomenon itself must be of recent origin.
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