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The recency illusion is the belief or impression that a word or language usage is of recent origin when it is long-established. The term was invented by Arnold Zwicky, a linguist at Stanford University who was primarily interested in examples involving words, meanings, phrases, and grammatical constructions. 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". 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 ''someone said they liked the play''. Although this usage is often cited as a modern invention, it is quite old. The usage is found, for example, in Shakespeare. * 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.〔 * 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. They go back to at least the 18th century, and are commonly found in the works and letters of such writers as Benjamin Franklin. * "Aks" as a production of African American English only. Use of "aks" in place of "ask" dates back to the 17th century and Middle English, though typically in this context spelled "ax". * The word "recency" itself. It is commonly used in consumer marketing ("analyze the recency of customer visits")〔http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rfm-recency-frequency-monetary-value.asp〕 and many think it was coined for that purpose. But its first known use was in 1612.〔http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recency〕 According to Zwicky, the illusion is caused by selective attention.〔 ==See also== * Baader-Meinhof phenomenon 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Recency illusion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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