Recency illusion

For the cognitive bias, see Recency bias.

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. The term was coined by Arnold Zwicky, a linguist at Stanford University who is primarily interested in examples involving words, meanings, phrases, and grammatical constructions.^[1] However, use of the term is not restricted to linguistic phenomena: Zwicky has defined it simply as, "the belief that things you have noticed only recently are in fact recent".^[2]

According to Zwicky, the illusion is caused by selective attention.^[2]

Examples

Linguistic items prone to the recency illusion include:

• "Singular they": the use of "they," "them," or "their" to reference a singular antecedent without specific gender, as in "If George or Sally come by, give them the package." Although this usage is often cited as a modern invention,^[3] it is quite old,^[4][A] going back to the 14th century.^[5][6]
• The phrase "between you and I" (rather than "between you and me"), often viewed today as a hypercorrection, which could also be found occasionally in Early Modern English.^[4]
• The intensifier "really," as in "it was a really wonderful experience," and the moderating adverb "pretty," as in "it was a pretty exciting experience." Many people have the impression that these usages are somewhat slang-like, and have developed relatively recently.^{[citation needed]} They go back to at least the 18th century, and are commonly found in the works and letters of such writers as Benjamin Franklin.
• "Literally" being used figuratively as an intensifier is often viewed as a recent change, but in fact usage dates back to the 1760s.^[7]
• "Aks" as a production of African American English only.^{[citation needed]} Use of "aks" in place of "ask" dates back to the works of Chaucer in Middle English, though typically in this context spelled "ax".^[8]

See also

• Frequency illusion

Notes

A. Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage noted, "Although the lack of a common-gender third person pronoun has received much attention in recent years from those concerned with women's issues, the problem, as felt by writers, is much older" (1989, page 901).