Near the top of the page, appears the word Antichrony. What does it mean and why is it not in the dictionary? Forgive me if this a completely ignorant question but it's bugged me for years.
Posted by shimiqua (Member # 7760) on :
That's a good question.
I think the author made it up just to see if anybody noticed.
Well done.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
The sense I get from the word roots is anti-anachrony: anti-anachronism.
Posted by sholar (Member # 3280) on :
Well, it is Le Guin- doesn't she often make up words?
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited January 15, 2010).]
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
I submit that it's a special kind of anachronism from what I could find online.
Anachronism means that things are in the wrong place in time, and I got the impression that antichrony is when things are in the wrong order in time. (As in what should have been the cause acts like it's the effect or result, perhaps.)
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
One of the senses I ran across in an article from its context seems that antichrony means anticlockwise. Another suggests it means anti-time, or a reversal of chronological or logical direction. In LeGuin's usage, I get the sense from the context that anticlockwise comes close, as in a temporal skip into the past causes an antichronic disorientation, an antichrony.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited January 15, 2010).]
Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :
I agree with extrinsic. Antichrony is something that is against or resists time. Time travel, suspended animation, etc.
Anachronism is too well understood for a made up synonym.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
I believe Ms. Dalton-Woodbury and InarticulateBabbler's (via Dictionary.com) meanings for antichrony are on point too. There's very little separation between the three, including mine, for what antichrony means.
Anachronsim means out of chronological place in its several denotative meanings. Driving a horse and carriage on an interstate superhighway would be an out of place anachronism. On a colonial era reenactment road in Colonial Williamsburg or Old Sturbridge Village, for example, driving a horse and carriage is in a logical chronological context. However, those reenacted villages themselves conceivably could be construed as anachronisms. Their advertising recognizes that antichrony, metaphorically traveling back in time.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited January 15, 2010).]
Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
So once you reach a certain level in your writing career, you can simply say, "I know this word doesn't exist - but it should", and the editors will just publish it that way. That's awesome. Thanks for all the input. City of Illusions, and Rocannons World are two stories from my childhood that made me want to write. I love the Hainish universe, messy as it is. I wish Ursula had taken it as seriously as her fans did, actually I think she wishes that now.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I would take from its root kronos, and the modifying anti-, that it means "against time." It seems to be a real word, "antichrony" and "antichronies," with about fifty references on Google...a couple of passes at the online dirctionaries and a thumbthrough of my old big dictionary revealed nothing.
