Have you ever met someone so opposite you couldn’t stand them? Well, spare a thought for the poor fellow burdened with an antiscian. That’s right, according to dictionaries (reliable-ish sources, usually), an antiscian is your mirror image chilling on the other side of the equator, casting their shadow the other way when the sun’s at high noon.
But here’s the thing: who actually uses “antiscian” in a sentence besides dusty dictionaries and, apparently, telegraph-wielding miners? (Though picturing a grizzled miner fretting about his antipodean shadow is a delightful image.)
I am beside myself with worry as my antiscian might have drowned 238 miles away on a speck of an island called Bouvet. Now, Bouvet Island belongs to Norway, and – I am convinced that my antiscian has an irrational distrust of Norwegians.
Look, the odds of needing to write a strongly worded letter to your antiscian (or gossiping about them at the local pub) are slim to none. But this whole situation is a goldmine of comedic absurdity.
Who even invented this word? Was there a group of bored 18th-century cartographers sitting around going, “You know what we need? A fancy term for someone’s opposite shadow?”
So, while “antiscian” may be a wonderfully obscure word, its practicality is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. But hey, at least it provides endless amusement over the potential existential angst of your antipodal shadow.