Gaslighting

Merriam-Webster is an important publisher of dictionaries in the United States.
Each year, the company announces a word of the year.
Their word of the year 2022 is “gaslighting”.

Words

• Abuse of someone is bad and harmful treatment of this person.
• Something valuable is something that is worth a lot of money or something that is important to someone in a personal way.
• If someone rifles through things, this person searches through something quickly in order to steal something.
• The attic is the room at the top of a house just below the roof.
• If a light flickers, it shines unsteadily, sometimes bright, sometimes dim.
• A victim is a person who is cheated or fooled by someone else.

Assignment

1. Where does the term “gaslighting” come from?
   a      A crazy woman from the Gaslight Era.
   b      A film from 1944 called Gaslight.
   c       A government campaign from 1944.
   d      A play by Ingmar Bergman called Gaslight.

2. What could make gaslights in a room flicker?
   a       If you lived in a house with too many rooms.
   b      If you switched on the heating in the same room.
   c       If you turned on the light in another room.
   d      If you went to the attic to rifle through things.

3. So what does the modern term gaslighting mean?
   a      Choosing to live like people in the 1940s with gaslights and other old things.
   b      Making somebody believe false things and doubt their instincts.
   c       Marrying a woman only in order to find something valuable that belongs to her.
   d      Turning up the light in one room to dim all the other lights in the house.