Comments on: Anachronism, but for place instead of time

Question: Anachronism, but for place instead of time

onalark — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:05:50 -0800

What's a good word for 'a spatially or geographically incongruous person/event/object', as an analogue to anachronism, which is 'temporally incongruous'? (New words okay)

Here's a contrived example. Suppose I was visiting a city or region where the majority of its population did not eat meat, and walking down the middle of Main Street I saw a large steakhouse.

I would turn to my friend and say, "Wow, that steakhouse is a total ---------- here."

By: roofus

roofus — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:09:17 -0800

Anachorism

By: TedW

TedW — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:10:09 -0800

OOPArt is one option.

By: Rallon

Rallon — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:10:32 -0800

At least for your example, I think I'd tend to just say "that steakhouse is totally out of place here." That's no fun, though...

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:11:05 -0800

oddity?

By: entropone

entropone — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:20:48 -0800

Perhaps "outlier" - it's widely used in statistics to refer to a data point that is anomalous, far away (numerically) from the rest of the data.

Or, perhaps just "anomaly" - if you're refering to geographic or spatial oddities, there may be no need to include space/geography in the word itself.

By: ian1977

ian1977 — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:21:50 -0800

geographically challenged.

locale misalignment

time/space discrepancy

Just previewed... OOPArt is great!

By: onalark

onalark — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:22:57 -0800

Hmnn, Wikipedia also suggests anatopism in the See Also from Anachronism.

By: onalark

onalark — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:31:22 -0800

And further googling on anatopism and anachorism yields this blog post comparing the two, but which also makes an argument for para- and meta- as prefixes instead.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:41:05 -0800

I agree with Daniel at wishydig: "anachorism is a nonce-word, while anatopism is merely 'rare.' Plus, anatopism is fifty years older than its step-brother." Here are the cites for anatopism:

1812 COLERIDGE Rem. I. 317 In arranging which [books] the puzzled librarian must commit an anachronism in order to avoid an anatopism. 1850 DE QUINCEY Wks. XVI. 72 Geographical blunders, or what might be called anatopisms.

By: sondrialiac

sondrialiac — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 08:10:11 -0800

I'd say something like "Goodness, that must be from Kansas."

By: jquinby

jquinby — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 08:10:15 -0800

Seconding 'anomaly'.

By: twistofrhyme

twistofrhyme — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:20:42 -0800

texas vegan?
slutty nun?
black klansman?
fish-bike?

(ps, i am from texas, a vegan, a nun, slutty, black, and racist, so i'm allowed to say these things. only if you are a fish or a bicycle will i accept your outrage.)

By: the number 17

the number 17 — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:25:23 -0800

Seconding anatopism, also makes more sense in Greek. Anachorism is from χώρος, space, while anatopism is from τόπος, place.

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:22:05 -0800

"Fish out of water."

By: Charlie Lesoine

Charlie Lesoine — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:23:51 -0800

Sticks out like a sore thumb.

By: cardboard

cardboard — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:39:37 -0800

Why not just say it's incongruous and let context speak for itself?

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:48:26 -0800

a geology word for roughly this is terrane. Couldn't really use it in your example sentence, though.

By: rob511

rob511 — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:31:19 -0800

Here's an adjective that fits your example: heterotopic.