anatopism
English edit
Etymology edit
From Ancient Greek ἀνά (aná, “against”) and τόπος (tópos, “place”); apparently by analogy with anachronism.
Noun edit
anatopism (plural anatopisms)
- (rare) A thing that is out of its proper place; the geographic counterpart to anachronism.
- A war elephant described rampaging through Tenochtitlan in a novel about the Aztec Empire would be an anatopism.
- 1836: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Esq., M. A., ed, The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
- […] and can find no associates in size at a less distance than two centuries; and in arranging which the puzzled librarian must commit an anachronism in order to avoid an anatopism.
- 1912, Augustus Hopkins Strong, Miscellanies:
- There is no anachronism in putting them together; it is a sort of anatopism rather; the painter has placed within our view two scenes which no mortal eye could have witnessed at the same time.
- 1921, John Anthony Scott, The Unity of Homer:
- It is a remarkable fact that, so far as I can judge, no case of local inconsistency, not a single anatopism, can be brought home to the Iliad.
- 1995, Tony Killick, The Flexible Economy: Causes and Consequences of the Adaptability of National Economies:
- Much of the literature on the 'Japanese Miracle' (as well as on that vast anatopism, the transfer of Japanese recipes to Western countries) expatiates on […]
- 2006, Lilie Chouliaraki, The Spectatorship of Suffering:
- […] the semiotic mechanism of reorganizing space in this manner as an anatopism. Anatopism renders places such as Bali equivalents of other places […]
Translations edit
thing that is out of its proper place
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