Ohio Republican U.S. Senator J.D. Vance published a 1203-word diatribe Monday night filled with falsehoods and feeble hypocrisies, demanding that Democrats "tone down the rhetoric" while insisting he opposes "censorship." Critics are accusing the GOP vice presidential nominee of hypocrisy and gaslig...
By this metric, one can argue that we currently “misuse” a lot of words in the English language, but the reality is language evolves. Think about how the definition of “nice” has evolved from meaning “ignorant or stupid” in the 1300s to it’s current meaning.
So gaslighting should change to what? Telling someone they are doing something that they feel they aren’t?
You’re nice.
I’ve noticed this a lot the last 5-10 years. Nobody uses words wrong anymore it’s all “language evolves” and “language is descriptive not prescriptive.”
People are just using the word wrong.
It’s just crappy education mixed with “don’t tell me what to do” mentality. A lot of it is probably social media, where a popular person starts using a word wrong and that quickly spreads and is often used assuming the listener knows about the inside joke.
I was talking with someone IRL who was a very big Twitter and TikTok user. They are also (diagnosed) autistic. It was difficult to follow them because most of what they would say sounded almost meme-like, very accusatory, and rude. I would ask them not to talk to me like that and it was dismissed a “obviously a joke” or “sarcasm” or “deadpan.”