anachronism - vocabulary

anachronism - noun

Anything or anyone not in the correct historical or chronological time; an error in the assignment of a date or time to a person, thing, or event, as in To describe Mozart in the 19th century is an anachronism.

In a consultation room at San Francisco General Hospital, Warren Ratcliffe rolls up the leg of his jeans to display an anachronism. Purplish brown, leech-shaped splotches cover his left shin and calf. They exist also, he says, on his stomach and chest, and he fears they might appear on his hands and face, where clothing won't obscure them.

Kaposi's sarcoma, once the familiar and portentous calling card of the deadly AIDS epidemic, has all but disappeared over the last decade, during which multidrug "cocktail" therapy has drained HIV of much of its ferocity and returned many patients to normal lives. The markings on Ratcliffe's skin, however, tell of a grim exception.

—James Ricci ”The Ones HIV Left in Limbo” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2006

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