“Gaslighting” — behavior that’s mind manipulating, grossly misleading, downright deceitful — is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year. The Associated Press reports: 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.

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.”

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. “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, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large. “It was a word looked up frequently every single day of the year,” he said.

Merriam-Webster chooses its word of the year based solely on data. Rounding out this year’s Top 10 are: “Oligarch,” “Omicron,” “Codify,” “Queen consort,” “Raid,” “Sentient,” “Cancel culture,” “LGBTQIA,” and “Loamy.” Last year’s pick was “vaccine.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – ‘Gaslighting’ Is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year For 2022

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii, erupted for the first time in 38 years late Sunday night, following a series of spectacular eruptions of the smaller Kilauea volcano, also on the island, over the last five years. At 11:30 p.m. local time, an eruption began at Mauna Loa’s summit, inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Lava flowing from the volcano was confined to the summit area, and officials said there was no immediate threat to the public, but they warned that winds could carry volcanic gas, fine ash and thin glass fibers known as Pele’s hair downwind.

The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency raised the volcano alert level to a warning from an advisory. Mitch Roth, the mayor of Hawaii County, which has a population of about 200,000, said in a statement on Facebook early Monday that there were no evacuation orders or threats to the community. Two shelters were opened along the South Kona coast for people who voluntarily left their homes, officials said. The location and direction of lava flow can quickly change, officials said. Residents who are at risk were advised to review their preparedness plans. Officials said they planned to conduct an aerial survey of the eruption and assess any hazards.

Mauna Loa, which encompasses more than half of the Big Island of Hawaii and rises more than 13,600 feet above the Pacific Ocean, has erupted 33 times since 1843, averaging one eruption every five years. A majority of the eruptions occurred before 1950; since then, there have been only two — a summit eruption in 1975 and an eruption in 1984, when lava flow approached the city of Hilo. That last eruption caused volcanic air pollution across the state and prompted the authorities to close Highway 200 as lava flow destroyed utility poles and power lines. Heat released during the eruption also caused local thunderstorms and snowfall in certain regions. “While Mauna Loa has been largely dormant for 38 years, Kilauea, in the southeast corner of the Big Island, is considered one of the most active volcanoes in the world,” adds the report. “A months long eruption in 2018 produced 320,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of lava that transformed the landscape around Kilauea and was blamed for the destruction of around 700 homes.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Mauna Loa Volcano In Hawaii Erupts For the First Time In Nearly 40 Years

Microsoft is likely to offer remedies to EU antitrust regulators in the coming weeks to stave off formal objections to its $69 billion bid for “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The U.S. software giant and Xbox maker announced the deal in January to help it compete better with leaders Tencent and Sony. It has since then faced regulatory headwinds in the European Union, Britain and in the United States, with Sony criticising the deal and even calling for a regulatory veto.

The deadline for the European Commission, which is investigating the deal, to set out a formal list of competition concerns known as a statement of objection is in January. Offering remedies before such a document is issued could shorten the regulatory process. […] Microsoft’s remedy would consist mainly of a 10-year licensing deal to Playstation owner Sony, another person with direct knowledge said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Likely To Offer EU Concessions Soon in Activision Deal