Announced yesterday on Language Log, in a piece by Ben Zimmer entitled: “Frequency illusion” in the OED. It begins:
The latest batch of updates to the online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary includes a term that originated right here on Language Log, in a 2005 post by Arnold Zwicky. The term is frequency illusion, first attested in Arnold’s classic post, “Just Between Dr. Language and I.” Here is the OED treatment, an addition to the main entry for frequency:
frequency illusion n. a quirk of perception whereby a phenomenon to which one is newly alert suddenly seems ubiquitous.
Further details in Ben’s LLog piece.
Meanwhile, there’s a Page on this blog with an inventory of postings (on LLog and AZBlog) on illusions.
And one previous posting on this blog in which I get some press notice for the frequency illusion: on 12/7/16 in “Interview with a supremo” (I’m the supremo).
Musical bonus from the local experimental music scene:
“Frequency Illusion” by Solo Organ (San Francisco CA), Solo Organ’s second record, released 3/24/18: a solo Hammond organ project of Douglas Katelus, offering a “heavy free-form wall of sound organ”
Samples available on the website.
March 22, 2019 at 8:14 am |
My most vivid memory of a frequency illusion was when I learned the word “ubiquitous”.
March 22, 2019 at 8:25 am |
Ooh, taking it meta!
March 22, 2019 at 8:39 am |
True story!