89.3 KPCCradio (NPR) in Los Angeles
My favorite part of [yesterday’s] program was with Ralph Keyes, the author of ‘’I Love It When You Talk Retro,’’ about how we use shorthand references in our language – ‘’drop a dime’’ for turning somebody in, ‘’Mrs Robinson’’ for an older woman seducing a younger man – without always knowing how those phrases came to be. They’re touchstones, common cultural references that deliver in abbreviated fashion a more complex thought. But they also disappear; how long will ‘’dialing a phone’’ still be used? I was glad to help one caller who said someone had told him, ‘’Don’t gaslight me.’’ He didn’t know what it meant, and neither did Ralph Keyes. It comes from the classic Ingrid Bergman/Charles Boyer film, where her husband [Boyer] tries to drive her insane by, among other things, making the gaslight illuminations in their house go up and down, and then telling her she’s going crazy and seeing things. Ever since, ‘’to gaslight’’ someone means to try to drive them nuts.