What does “gaslighting” mean these days? 10 words born out of the screen

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Ever caught yourself rolling your eyes at "spam" or a "Debbie Downer"? Guess what —those aren't just words; they're pop culture legends that were screen-born. These 10 everyday terms started as TV or movie dialogue jewels and leaped into our conversations, becoming universal labels for both old and new ideas. Let’s see how many of these words started as plot-critical concepts —and stuck!

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Spam existed decades before the internet was even invented. Although back then it only referred to the pork-and-ham processed meat sold in cans (an abbreviation of "spiced ham"). The product had been circulating and consumed since 1937, when, in the 70s, the British group Monty Python made history with a sketch from their show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It was about a bar catering to Vikings, where every dish included canned meat, prompting the servers and customers to chant "spam" repeatedly and annoyingly.

The sketch became so popular that the cultural reference stuck in people’s minds. By the time electronic mail was born —and with it, tons of unsolicited, junky, repetitive messages — people already knew what to use the word for.

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Even though intrusive journalists have been around for centuries, meddlesome photographers didn’t have a label until the 1960s. In Federico Fellini’s famous movie La Dolce Vita, there was an iconic character named Paparazzo. He was a freelance photographer who relentlessly followed celebrities to capture sensational images. His actions represented a new type of aggressive journalism that was emerging at the time, focused on capturing the private lives of public figures.

Over the years, Fellini revealed that he chose the name Paparazzo for the character because it sounded like a "buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging." The word is universally used today and even has the derivation "papped", for subjects that have been caught on camera by such photographers.

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By now, we are very used to new technologies swiftly becoming verbs. Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary accepts "DM" as a verb and a noun. There was a time, though, when the verbification of tech wasn’t so obvious. One of Google’s co-founders, Larry Page, first used the search engine’s name as a gerund in a 1998 mailing list, where he signed off: "Have fun and keep googling!"

However, the verb gained widespread popularity thanks to a 2002 episode of the famous show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In it, a character asked Buffy if she had "googled" someone: the new term confused the others in the room. While the verb was likely emerging in many people’s vocabulary simultaneously, that scene helped solidify it for the masses. The American Dialect Society proceeded to choose the verb "google" as the "most useful word of 2002."

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It was the show Saturday Night Live that conceived this character who would get along with "Negative Nancy" and "Bob Bummer." In an episode that aired in 2004, comedian Rachel Dratch portrayed Debbie Downer, a woman who went to Disney World with her friends but was incapable of feeling joy and instead kept bringing up depressing topics.

The character was introduced along with a mocking jingle explaining her influence on her social group. The sketch was so celebrated that it became a recurring series in SNL, and the expression caught on. "Downer" had been in the English lexicon since the 19th century, but the idea of attaching it to a name to trademark the pessimistic attitude happened entirely in the scriptwriters’ room.

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"Bucket list" has existed for decades to refer to unfinished business, or pending issues in ongoing projects. But it wasn’t until the 21st century that the term was given a new meaning for its association with the expression "kicking the bucket". A "bucket list" then came to signify a series of experiences a person wants to have within their lifetime.

The concept was popularized for the masses thanks to the success of the movie The Bucket List (2007). In it, the terminally-ill characters played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman teach the audience the value of fulfilling life’s wishes and whims. The touching concept then entered the vocabulary of millions around the world.

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Although previously used to refer to computers, the term "core memories" only began to apply to humans thanks to an animated movie. In Pixar’s Inside Out (2015), the memories inside a girl’s mind are illustrated as a colorful system of orbs. The most treasured of those are called "core memories" and are created whenever the girl lives a deeply moving experience that helps solidify her identity.

Since the movie’s release, "core memories" has become a popular phrase on the internet, where people share real or imagined experiences to refer to events that left lasting impressions on their psyche and personality.

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We now use "catfishing" as the name for a type of online fraud: cases of financial or romantic deceit, where a fake online persona is created to lure victims. But, have you ever wondered how catfish —the fish— became tangled with these affairs?

In 2010, a producer called Nev Schulman released a documentary showing how he had been tricked in this way. One of the men interviewed about the case compared the event with a fabled deception from the fishing industry: placing an "impostor" catfish in a tank full of cod during shipping. The idea gave the documentary its title, and eventually led to a reality TV show of the same name, further cementing the concept's fame.

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This is another expression that was once used informally in some social groups as slang. An early instance of its use was recorded in a 1956 interview with Louis Armstrong. However, it was in the ‘90s that the apologetic motto caught on massively. It’s believed that it became internationally widespread because of its casual inclusion in a scene from the 1995 movie Clueless. In it, the protagonist swerves in one of her first driving lessons, and softly apologizes with a quick "Oops! My bad!".

Although it has sparked debates over its grammatical correctness, "my bad" is now used in informal conversations as a synonym for "sorry" or "my fault."

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Funnily enough, it was the show Friends that popularized the concept of "the friend zone." In the middle of the first season, which aired in 1994 to an audience of roughly 24 million viewers, Joey explains to Ross that romantic relationships hardly ever evolve from long-standing friendships. He introduces the expression with: "You are in the friend zone. You are major of the zone."

The term was quickly adopted and later used in other popular media, such as books and movies. Eventually, the words were verbified and also transformed to refer to both parts of the equation: the "friendzoner" and the "friendzonee."

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This term, broadly used in psychology nowadays, originated in honor of Gas Light, a British play by Patrick Hamilton. In the play, a man attempts to manipulate his wife by slowly deceiving her and making her doubt her own mental sanity. One of his strategies is to dim the gas lights in their house little by little, but insisting that he hasn’t touched them when she accuses him.

This tactic, the most symbolic of the character’s actions, gave its name to the play and the subsequent 1944 film adaptation. The story became a classic example to illustrate this particular form of manipulation, which is now universally referred to as "gaslighting."

WORD HISTORY

Did You Know These 10 Everyday Words Have Captivating Origins?

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Etymology is often overlooked, which is definitively a shame: After all, the history of the words we use every day is at least as old as humankind’s earliest interactions with language. As humans evolved and grew, so did our words, so you might not be surprised to learn that a big part of our vocabulary has roots in ancient and downright fascinating ancient cultures.

We have selected ten common words that have surprising, beautiful, or downright strange origins. We hope that, by the end of this article, you’ll think fondly about these interesting facts whenever you use these terms in everyday conversation. Enjoy!

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We’ll start with one of the most common childhood dream jobs, and while only a select few might travel to outer space, we still hold the uttermost respect and fascination for these daring men and women. In that sense, the word "astronaut" has a rather beautiful meaning hiding in its etymology.

Astronaut comes from the Ancient Greek words astron, which means "stars," and nautes, which means "sailor." So, in a sense, this dream profession beautifully represents one of mankind’s oldest dreams: the ability to sail freely and discover the skies above.

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Have you ever applauded after watching a particularly colorful and energetic fireworks display? You might be surprised to learn that both the sound of your applause and the colorful explosions above your head share the same etymological root.

The verb "explode" comes from the Latin word plaudere, which describes the noise produced by loud clapping. Ancient Romans would show their approval of something pretty much as we do: with a resounding round of applause, which was described by the term explaudere.

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You are probably familiar with the word "boycott," which describes the act of willingly denying support to a company or organization due to differing principles. However, were you aware that, before it became a commonly used word, boycott was first the last name of a British army officer?

What’s interesting is that Captain Charles Boycott, the man after whom this action was named, was not the one to first enact a boycott: he was actually the target of one. Captain Boycott managed a property in Northern Ireland during the 19th century and became involved in a dispute with local farmers that ended in the very first boycott in history. Enraged farmers decided to stop working the captain’s lands, forcing him to leave the town.

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Remember how we promised in the introduction of this article that we would delve into some weird etymology? Well, we’ll go a step beyond that and focus on the strange origins of the word "weird" itself. You might be surprised to learn that a term usually associated with informal or casual use is based on classical figures of mythology.

Weird comes from the Old English word wyrd, which was used as a synonym for "fate." In fact, the plural word wyrde was used to represent the Fates, the three Greek goddesses that spun the lives of mortals and gods alike. You might recall the three Weird Sisters, who told King Macbeth his fate in Shakespeare’s classic play. Surprisingly, the "weird" in their name didn’t describe their strangeness, but rather their ability to tell the future.

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You would think that such an iconic term as "astronaut" would be the only space-related term in this list, but the truth is that many words related to "the Final Frontier" have fascinating origins. For example, the word "planet" comes from an Ancient Greek word that means "wanderer," while "comet" can be roughly translated to "long-haired star." In that sense, the etymological origins of the word "galaxy" also tell a beautiful tale of human ingenuity.

Galaxy comes from the Late Latin word galaxias, which in turn comes from the Ancient Greek galaxías. This last word is derived from gála (Greek for "milk"), which was mostly used in conjunction with the Greek word for wheel, kýklos. So, the word devised by Ancient Greece to describe the Milky Way ended up describing every galaxy that inspires our sense of discovery.

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Nowadays, we use the word "juggernaut" to describe something massive in size, as well as powerful and almost unstoppable. While this term was made popular by a Marvel comics villain of the same name (who shares all of these qualities), its etymological origins are actually rooted in the story of an ancient Hindi god.

The word "juggernaut" is an English rendering of Jagannath, one of the central deities in Hinduism. The name of this god is in itself a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to "Lord of the Universe," which further illustrates the importance of this deity.

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Porpoises are sometimes regarded as less popular than dolphins, which is truly a disservice to this intelligent cetacean, which is actually a closer relative to belugas than to dolphins. So, let’s try our best, at least for this entry, to keep dolphins out of the picture, and let’s focus solely on the fascinating etymology of porpoises.

The word "porpoise" comes from the Anglo-French word porpeis, which in turn comes from two Latin roots: porcus, which means "pig," and piscis, which means "fish." While "pig fish" might not be the most glamorous etymology for our seafaring friends, we hope the world will now see this lovable animal in a more favorable light.

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Just like with "boycott," a real person holds the dubious honor of being the origin of the name behind one of the most addictive substances on Earth. Nicotine, a chemical compound commonly found in cigarettes, was named after Jean Nicot de Villemain, a 16th-century French diplomat credited with bringing the first tobacco plants to France.

To be fair, Jean Nicot believed that smoking tobacco had medicinal properties and that it would help his country deal with ravaging illnesses like the plague. Since the plant was known as Nicotiana in France, it stands to reason that Nicot’s last name inspired the etymology of this chemical compound.

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The term "Silhouette" describes an image that depicts a single element (such as a person, an animal, or an object) as a single, solid color that doesn’t show any internal features. While this is definitively a loan word from the French language, you might be surprised to learn that this word pays homage to yet another French statesman.

Étienne de Silhouette, an 18th-century finance minister, was the direct inspiration for this technique. According to historians, his harsh economic wartime measures forced many wealthy French people to turn to more austere artistic representations. As a result, these cheaper outline portraits became increasingly popular in this country’s artistic communities.

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We’ll end this article with the beautifully tragic story behind the word "echo." This word describes a reflection of sound, which the listener usually experiences after a slight delay. Echo is present in nature in many forms, from the way natural accidents like canyons return sound to a process that animals like bats or dolphins use to navigate their environments.

Like many entries on this list, this word comes to us from Ancient Greece: in Greek mythology, the mountain nymph Echo was cursed by the goddess Hera to only be able to repeat the last words spoken to her. While this nymph’s fate was definitively calamitous, we can at least take solace in the fact that her namesake inspired radar technology, one of the most useful human inventions in history.