What's new on IELTS with Fiona

I love discovering the origins of words.

So, yesterday I got this email about the “Word of the Year" according to the well-known Merriam Webster Dictionary.

"Gaslighting" is “the act or practice of misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage.”

The term comes from the title of a 1938 play and movie called ‘Gas Light’.

It’s about a man who tries to make his wife believe that she is going crazy. 

He dims (= lowers the brightness of) the gas lights in their house, but he insists to his wife that the lights are not dimming.

THEN I saw this fascinating article which points out how teachers are 'gaslit' by insipirational quotes (people try to brainwash them into thinking that they shouldn't charge much for their services etc).