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word of the year: “gaslighting”
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Leanne Italie – The Associated Press
NEW YORK — “Gaslighting” — behavior that’s mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful — is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.
Lookups for the word on merriam-webster.com increased 1,740% in 2022 over the year before. But something else happened. There wasn’t a single event that drove significant spikes in curiosity, as it usually goes with the chosen word of the year.
The gaslighting was pervasive.
“It’s a word that has risen so quickly in the English language, and especially in the last four years, that it actually came as a surprise to me and to many of us,” said Peter Sokolowski, MerriamWebster’s editor at large, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s unveiling.
“It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year,” he said.
There were deepfakes and the dark web. There were deep states and fake news. And there was a whole lot of trolling. Merriam-Webster’s top definition for gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person, usually over an extended period of time, that “causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” More broadly, the dictionary defines the word thusly: “The act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.”
Gaslighting is a heinous tool frequently used by abusers in relationships — and by politicians and other newsmakers. It can happen between romantic partners, within a broader family unit and among friends. It can be a corporate tactic, or a way to mislead the public. There’s also “medical gaslighting,” when a health care professional dismisses a patient’s symptoms or illness as “all in your head.”
Despite its relatively recent prominence — including “Gaslighter,” The Chicks’ 2020 album featuring the rousingly angry titular single — the word was brought to life more than 80 years ago with “Gas Light,” a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton. It birthed two film adaptations in the 1940s. One, George Cukor’s “Gaslight” in 1944, starred Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist and Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton. The two marry after a whirlwind romance and Gregory turns out to be a champion gaslighter. Among other instances, he insists her complaints over the constant dimming of their London townhouse’s gaslights is a figment of her troubled mind. It wasn’t.
The death of Angela Lansbury in October drove some interest in lookups of the word, Sokolowski said. She played Nancy Oliver, a young maid hired by Gregory and told not to bother his “high-strung” wife.
The term gaslighting was later used by mental health practitioners to clinically describe a form of prolonged coercive control in abusive relationships.
“There is this implication of an intentional deception,” Sokolowski said. “And once one is aware of that deception, it’s not just a straightforward lie, as in, you know, I didn’t eat the cookies in the cookie jar. It’s something that has a little bit more devious quality to it. It has possibly an idea of strategy or a long-term plan.”
Merriam-Webster, which logs 100 million pageviews a month on its site, chooses its word of the year based solely on data. Sokolowski and his team weed out evergreen words most commonly looked up to gauge which word received a significant bump over the year before.
They don’t slice and dice why people look up words, which can be anything from quick spelling and definition checks to some sort of attempt at inspiration or motivation. Some of the droves who looked up “gaslighting” this year might have wanted to know, simply, if it’s one or two words, or whether it’s hyphenated.
“Gaslighting,” Sokolowski said, spent all of 2022 in the top 50 words looked up on merriamwebster.com to earn top dog word of the year status. Last year’s pick was “vaccine.”
In fact,
Gas lamps illuminate St. Louis’ Gaslight Square on April 2, 1962. “Gaslighting” — mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful — is Merriam-Webster’s word of 2022. (AP Photo/JMH, File)
Museums’ daring feat brings major Ukraine art show to Spain
Ciarán Giles – The Associated Press
MADRID (AP) — Against a backdrop of Russian bombardments, border closures and a nail-biting 3,500-kilometer (2,150mile) truck journey across Europe, Spain’s ThyssenBornemisza National Museum has teamed up with the National Art Museum of Ukraine to secretly bring dozens of 20th century Ukrainian avantgarde artworks to Madrid for a unique exhibition and a show of support for the war-torn country.
“In The Eye Of The Hurricane. Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s,” opened to the public Tuesday, featuring some 70 works mostly from the Kyiv gallery and the country’s theater, music and cinema museum. It will run until next April. The show constitutes the first time that such a large body of modern art has left Ukraine. The circumstances under which it has been organized make it a feat of cultural defiance.
“This is super important for us as a way to protect our heritage, that we managed to take the works out of the war zone,” says Katia Denysova, one of the exhibition’s curators.
The show is the brainchild of Swiss-born art collector and activist Francesca ThyssenBornemisza, founder of the Museums for Ukraine support network, and her friend, Ukrainian art historian and curator Konstantin Akinsha. They came up with the idea following Russia’s invasion of its neighbor last February.
The central concept was to counter Russia’s narrative that Ukraine doesn’t rightfully exist and that its art is really Russian.
“We wanted to act as a protector of these works that are extremely unique and rare, but also to do it by celebrating the value of Ukraine’s immense legacy that has been completely forgotten and appropriated by Russia over the last decades,” said Thyssen-Bornemisza, a daughter of the late Dutchborn industrialist and baron whose collection formed the basis of the Madrid gallery when it opened in 1992. An international art exhibition of this type would normally take several years to organize. This one, with the blessing of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, came together in a matter of months. Getting the paintings to Madrid was the stuff of wartime drama. After months of preparations, the works were packed into two trucks in the early hours of Tuesday, Nov. 15, just hours before Russia unleashed a wave of attacks on the Ukraine capital and key national infrastructure targets.
Organizers had not been banking on Russia attacking that day, saying the attacks normally occur on Mondays. But with a military escort, the trucks left the city safely.
On their way west, however, they had to pass through the city of Lviv, which also came under surprise attack. They eventually made it to the Polish border early Wednesday but it was closed following the landing of a stray Russian-made missile just inside Poland that initially triggered fears of a major escalation of the war. Eventually the border reopened, and the convoy sped to Madrid where it arrived Sunday, Nov. 20. The paintings, ranging from figurative art
In fact, to futurism and constructivism, stem from an exceedingly turbulent period for Ukraine, with collapsing empires, world war, revolutions and the The central war of independence before the eventual creation concept [of the of Soviet Ukraine. The show includes works by exhibit] was to Mykhailo Boichuk, Davyd Burliuk, Vadym Meller, counter Russia’s Kostiantyn Yeleva and Vasyl Yermilov. narrative that “We know what happens when Russians occupy Ukraine doesn’t territories and get hold of the museums. They loot rightfully exist and everything,” said Denysova, referring to the fate of that its art is really the art museum in Kherson, a southern Ukraine Russian. city which Kremlin forces occupied for eight months until Ukrainian forces recaptured it earlier this month. In a video message for the inauguration, Zelenskyy said terrible times had returned to Ukraine but there was hope. “At this exhibition you can see Ukrainian art, which was also created in terrible times,” said Zelenskyy. “Terror tried to rule then as it does now. But just like in the 20th century, humanity must win and just like then, culture must win,” he added. In April, the show will move to Cologne, Germany, where it will be on display until September.
Fidelity Charitable launches NFT raffle amid crypto downturn
But the meltdown of Terra – a stablecoin– brought down a series of major cryptocurrency businesses.
Thalia Beaty – The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Fidelity Charitable is getting into NFTs, the digital images that are registered on the blockchain, despite a torrent of bad news from the adjacent world of cryptocurrencies.
The nation’s largest grantmaker sponsored a raffle that ended Tuesday, where participants can claim one of the NFTs, which stands for nonfungible token, and 50 will win $1,000 to donate through a donor advised fund at Fidelity.
“The reason we’re doing this is we really believe there’s a whole new generation of givers and philanthropists out there,” said Amy Pirozzolo, head of donor engagement for Fidelity Charitable. “We want to be where they are and the channels they use and the formats they use and further encourage their generosity.”
Around 16% of Americans say they invested in cryptocurrencies, according to a poll from Pew Research Center last year. The demographic most likely to invest were men between the ages of 18 and 29, with 43% reporting that they had invested.
The blockchain is the technology that underlies the trading of cryptocurrencies, but it can also record the ownership of digital items like images, videos or Tweets. Fidelity said that 50,000 different wallets, potentially representing that many individuals, have already registered to create an NFT and potentially win the money to donate.
Contributions in cryptocurrency to donor advised funds at Fidelity exploded last year, growing from the equivalent of $28 million in 2020 to $331 million in 2021, Fidelity has said.
Speaking of the NFT project, Jacob Pruitt, president of Fidelity Charitable, said, “I think it’ll be a unique way to engage with next gen investors. It’s another way that I think Fidelity is innovating and leaning into a new space.”
Donor advised funds allow donors to claim a tax credit for charitable donations, but do not require them to give those funds away within any specific timeframe. Organizations that host DAFs, like Fidelity Charitable, also handle more complex donations, which includes exchanging the assets for cash and producing receipts for donors for tax purposes. “Many of the nonprofits either can’t take on these assets or they have to hire outside counsel or people to staff to do it,” Pirozzolo said. One reason for the jump in cryptocurrency donations is that until recently, their value had appreciated significantly. The cryptocurrency market saw a huge boom in 2021 with the price of Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, rising to an all-time high of around $68,000 in November last year.
But the meltdown of Terra — a stablecoin, or a type of cryptocurrency that tries to peg its value to an asset like the U.S. dollar — in May brought down a series of major cryptocurrency businesses. Then, earlier this month, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX and related entities, suddenly filed for bankruptcy leaving both American and international users unable to access assets they held on the exchange. James Lawrence, co-founder and CEO of Engiven, I think it’ll be a unique way to engage with next gen investors. Jacob Pruitt, president of Fidelity Charitable which facilitates cryptocurrency to nonprofits, including Christian ministries, observed that many people giving cryptocurrencies are making major gifts and that often those happen in the last quarter of the year. That means it’s too early to say how the cryptocurrency market’s fluctuations may impact donations this year. He said he doesn’t see people donating cryptocurrencies as that
In fact, different from other donors. “They just have a different asset to give and they’re going to give the Around 16% of Americans say they invested in cryptocurrencies, according to a poll from Pew Research Center last year. most appreciated asset they can,” Lawrence said. Of the more than 1.5 million nonprofits registered with the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S., Lawrence estimated that only four or five thousand could receive cryptocurrency donations directly. “That’s a huge market that still doesn’t,” he said. He also has observed that many giving large donations in cryptocurrency (they facilitated one donation of $10 million in cryptocurrency assets) are the same types of people who give large donations in general, and not necessarily the younger demographics that are more likely to invest in cryptocurrency. “Many of the largest gifts we’ve processed have been from an older demographic who have a tradition of giving large gifts in multiple asset classes,” he said.
