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Jul 11, 2005 This week's theme Words from movie titles This week's words gaslight mondo stepford zelig mitty Make a gift that keeps on giving, all year long: A gift subscription of AWAD or give the gift of books Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg The word gaslight is an excellent example of how a language grows. It shows how a word's meaning can take unexpected paths in its evolution. The noun gaslight has not only turned into a verb but also taken a sense entirely unrelated to its inherent meaning. It's a sign of cinema's hold on popular culture that this word from a movie title has entered the English lexicon in a new incarnation. This week we've collected five words from movie titles that have taken similar turns in the English language. gaslight gaslight (GAS-lyt) verb tr. To manipulate psychologically. [From the title of the classic movie Gaslight (1940 and its 1944 remake), based on author Patrick Hamilton's play. The title refers to a man's use of seemingly unexplained dimming of gaslights (among other tricks) in the house in an attempt to manipulate his wife into thinking she is going insane.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. "Cutting off another couple hours with a zoomy Concorde look-alike would be nice, if such a plane could be delivered at an affordable cost. Here, though, anyone might wonder if the media are being gaslighted along with Airbus." Holman W. Jenkins Jr.; Haven't Shareholders Had Enough Chicken? The Wall Street Journal (New York); Apr 4, 2001. X-Bonus Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

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