Merriam-Webster is a name we recognize. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in North America. Don’t laugh, but in my office desk drawer I have a paperback edition Merriam-Webster dictionary published in…. 1974. Many words have been added in the last 48 years and of course there is an online version that annually picks a “Word of the Year”. Their 2022 word is “gaslighting”. That word isn’t in my 1974 edition but there is the word “gaslight” referring to a light made by burning illuminating gas, also a gas lighting fixture. However, those are far removed from the meaning of “gaslighting”, which is defined as, “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage”. Merriam-Webster chose it as its top word for 2022 because it has become the favoured word for “the perception of deception”. The term comes from a 1938 play and 1948 film, “Gaslight”, in which a man tries to trick his new wife into thinking she’s losing her mind, in part by telling her that the gaslights in their home, which dim when he’s up in the attic doing nefarious deeds, are not fading at all. In this age of misinformation, this year in particular, interest in the word gaslighting has surged according to Merriam-Webster with a 1,740 % increase in searches for the term. For example, the term has been used in reference to former US president Donald Trump to describe the way he downplayed the severity of the January 6th insurrection and also after denying he had made several statements he had made in public. Anyway, there’s your 2022 dictionary word of the year, “gaslighting”.
That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.
