Editing Archaism (section)

==Usage==
Archaisms are most frequently encountered in [[history]], [[poetry]], [[fantasy literature]], [[law]], [[philosophy]], [[science]], [[technology]], [[geography]] and [[ritual]] writing and speech. Archaisms are kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the study of older literature. Should they remain recognised, they can potentially be revived.

Because they are things of continual discovery and re-invention, science and technology have historically generated forms of speech and writing which have dated and fallen into disuse relatively quickly. However, the emotional associations of certain words have kept them alive, for example the archaic 'wireless' rather than 'radio' for a generation of British citizens who lived through the [[Second World War]]; but in recent years the term has been repurposed as a non-archaic term for [[Wi-Fi|wifi]] and [[Cellular network|cell-phone]] technology. 

A similar desire to evoke a former age means that archaic place names are frequently used in circumstances where doing so conveys a political or emotional subtext, or when the official new name is not recognised by all (for example: 'Madras' rather than 'Chennai'). So, a restaurant seeking to conjure up historic associations might prefer to call itself ''Old Bombay'' or refer to ''Persian cuisine'' in preference to using the newer place name. A notable contemporary example is the airline [[Cathay Pacific]], which uses the archaic [[Cathay]] for [[China]].

Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. One example is the [[phrase]] "odd man out", which originally came from the phrase "to find the odd man out", where the verb "to find out" has been split by its object "the odd man", meaning the item which does not fit. The object + split verb has been reinterpreted as a noun + adjective, such that "out" describes the man rather than any verb.

The [[pronominal adverbs]] found in [[legal writing|the writing of lawyers]] (e.g. ''heretofore'', ''hereunto'', ''thereof'') are examples of archaisms as a form of jargon. Some [[phraseology|phraseologies]], especially in religious contexts, retain archaic elements that are not used in ordinary speech in any other context: "With this ring I thee wed."  Archaisms are also used in the [[dialogue]] of [[historical novel]]s to evoke the flavour of the period. Some may count as [[inherently funny word]]s and are used for [[humour|humorous]] effect.