[Ads-l] "Gaslight" as a verb only five decades old

[Ben Zimmer]

There's a 1956 "I Love Lucy" episode called "Lucy Meets Charles Boyer," in
which Ricky conspires with Charles Boyer to make Lucy think that Boyer is
merely a lookalike. There are obvious parallels to "Gaslight," but I
watched the episode here and I didn't hear anything about "gaslighting":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEg-3yqLLVQ

--Ben


On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jon: The earliest HDAS cite is from 1956, quoting an unnamed NYC woman,
> age 41. There's nothing about "I Love Lucy," and I've never heard anything
> about the show spreading the word. Do you have more information on this you
> can share?
>
> --Ben
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 11:11 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Check HDAS, with earlier cite from "I Love Lucy" - which probably
>> popularized the verb through infinite reruns.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 10:28 AM, Yagoda, Ben <byagoda at udel.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > George Cukor’s 1944 film was in turn based on a 1938 play by Patrick
>> > Hamilton. The OED’s first citation for “gaslight” as a  verb is a
>> sentence
>> > from a 1965 article in “The Reporter”: "Some troubled persons having
>> even
>> > gone so far as to charge malicious intent and premeditated
>> ‘gaslighting.’”
>> >
>>
>

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