[Ads-l] 1961 psychology use Re: [ADS-L] [Non-DoD Source] Re: "Gaslight" as a verb only five decades old

Fri Jan 13 17:53:18 UTC 2017

Following Stephen's lead. Here is a match that apparently appeared in
Scientific American
and explicitly mentioned the verb form:

Frontiers of Psychological Research: Readings from Scientific American
https://books.google.com/books?id=CqcoAQAAIAAJ
Stanley Coopersmith - 1964

[Begin excerpt]
... of the parent-child relation. Such disturbed patterns of
communication may obtain in other relations; the motion picture
Gaslight, in which a husband willfully subjects his wife to such
treatment, has added the verb "to gaslight" to the language.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
> It is also popularly believed to be possible to "gaslight" a perfectly healthy person into psychosis by interpreting his own behavior to him as symptomatic of serious mental illness.While "gaslighting" itself may be a mythical crime, there is no question that any social attitude which interprets a given behavior or experience as symptomatic of a generalized incompetence is a powerful creator of shame[....]
>
>
> P. 183 in Culture and Personality by Anthony F. C. Wallace (NY: Random House, 1961, First Printing, confirmed on paper).
>
>
> Stephen Goranson
>
> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <...> on behalf of Ben Zimmer <...>
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2017 11:47 AM
> To: ...
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] [Non-DoD Source] Re: "Gaslight" as a verb only five decades old
>
> Ben Yagoda, who initiated this thread, summarized our discussions of the
> history of the verb "gaslight" in his latest column for the Chronicle's
> Lingua Franca blog.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.chronicle.com_blogs_linguafranca_2017_01_12_how-2Dold-2Dis-2Dgaslight_&d=CwIFaQ&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=uUVa-8oDL2EzfbuMuowoUadHHcJ7pjul6iFkS5Pd--8&m=jmROk26LsgeYlEw6gdsGClQjP7eLdEtf5KHax00HqB0&s=RJVBrN6nDx_WpMhgl_8RVC6sy7WPcJtiWUbu_-svRbk&e=
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org