[Peace-discuss] Keywords 112818

[Szoke, Ron]

Keywords  112818

A review of some terms useful in political analysis & polemics

gaslight
What does gaslight mean?
We define gaslighting as “to attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experiences that have no rational explanation).”
Where does gaslight come from?
The modern sense of gaslighting comes from Gas Light, a play (1938) by British writer Patrick Hamilton, subsequently made into British and American films entitled Gaslight (1940 and 1944), in which a man attempts to trick his wife into believing that she is going insane. Used as a verb and verbal noun, gaslighting has been in this figurative use since at least 1956<https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-from-london/gaslight>.
>  Also a recent vogue-word (— H.W. Fowler) or “hotword.”  ~ RSz.

psychotomimetic
Definition - of, relating to, involving, or inducing psychotic alteration of behavior and personality
This word—from psychotic and mimetic (meaning "imitative")—first appeared in the 1950s, as mind-altering drugs began catching on with the public. The word's unpleasant association with psychosis inspired Dr. Humphry Osmond to coin the synonymous psychedelic<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psychedelic>. That shifted the emphasis to examining how the agent might help enlarge the vision or explore the mind.
The manner by which LSD-25 produces its mental changes is obscure. The letters LSD stand for lysergic acid diethylamide. The 25 identifies it as the 25th compound in the series. The drug itself is loosely classified as “hallucinogenic” or “psychotomimetic.”
— Joe Hyams, _The New York Herald Tribune, 8 Nov. 1959

trichotillomania
Definition - an abnormal desire to pull out one's hair
Trichotillomania<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trichotillomania> comes from combining roots from New Latin (trich, meaning “hair,” and mania) and Greek (tillein, meaning “to pull, pluck”). The word appears to have come about at the suggestion of a French doctor at the end of the 19th century.
Trichotillomania.—This name is proposed by M. Hallopeau for a condition described by him at the seance of the French Society of Dermatology and Syphilography … It is a morbid condition, consisting of exacerbations of pruriginous sensations in the hairy parts of the body, accompanied by a vesania, that leads the subjects to try to get relief by pulling out the hairs, hence the name given above.
— American Journal of Insanity (Baltimore, MD), Jul. 1894
By 1896 the word was already found defined in medical dictionaries, such as George M. Gould’s The Student’s Medical Dictionary (“an uncontrollable impulse to pull out one’s hair”).

— Merriam-Webster, online

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