The Words of the Week - Nov. 3

‘Offset’

Offset spiked in lookups last week, after one set of people claimed that cutting funding in one area would offset the cost of increasing it in a different area, while others said that it would not, in fact, offset this.

GOP plan to ‘offset’ Israel aid with IRS cuts would backfire, budget experts warn
— (headline) The Hill, 1 Nov. 2023

We define offset, as the word has been used in recent budgetary discussions, as “to cancel or reduce the effect of (something) : to create an equal balance between two things.”

‘Gaslight’

The headline of a story in The Washington Post sent a large number of people to the dictionary to look up the word gaslight.

‘You just gaslit her’: How Dean Phillips’ first town hall went off the rails in N.H.
— (headline) The Washington Post, 2 Nov. 2023

Gaslight, as a verb, is defined as “to psychologically manipulate (a person) usually over an extended period of time so that the victim questions the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories, and experiences confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and doubts concerning their own emotional or mental stability.” Both gaslit and gaslighted are acceptable when using this verb in the past tense.

‘Caldera’

Caldera was found in many news stories last week as well, as there was considerable coverage on two exceedingly large volcanoes of this type.

Most experts say there is no immediate threat of an eruption at either Long Valley or Campi Flegrei. Both volcanoes are calderas—sprawling depressions created long ago by violent “super-eruptions” that essentially collapsed in on themselves—which are often more challenging to forecast compared to the large mountain-shaped features that people typically imagine when they think of volcanoes.
— Denise Chow, NBC News, 1 Nov. 2023

A caldera is “a volcanic crater that has a diameter many times that of the vent and is formed by collapse of the central part of a volcano or by explosions of extraordinary violence.” The word comes from the Spanish word (spelled the same) for caldron (“a large kettle or boiler”).

‘Yada-yada’

Yada yada has been spiking in lookups for several weeks. We are unsure of the cause, but suspect that it is due to the word being prominently featured in an advertisement for a cellular phone service, used by an actor (Jason Alexander) who was part of a show (Seinfeld) that popularized it.

We define yada yada as “boring or empty talk,” and note that it is often used interjectionally, especially in recounting words regarded as too dull or predictable to be worth repeating. The word is thought to have come from the slightly earlier yatata (which was often spelled as yat-a-ta, and doubled), although multiple spellings co-existed throughout the mid-20th century.

Us guys have got to listen for the next few months to a lot of yatatayatata and talk-talk about the dames’ new short haircuts, which’ll come about an inch below the ears.
— Earl Wilson, Los Angeles Daily News, 8 Feb. 1946

Yadda Yadda - Ever listen to Burgess Israel tell one of his tales?
— The Tracy (California) Press, 21 Oct. 1949

The two most talkative catchers in the American League are New York’s Yogi Berra and Cleveland’s Joe Tipton, says Umpire Larry Napp. “Those two guys never let up,” said Napp. “Always yat-a-ta-yat-a-ta.”
— The Chattanooga (Tennessee) Daily Times, 4 Jan. 1953

“Don’t put me down as one of those yada-yada verooney types that faint when the Beatles come on and then wave at the boys as the cops carry them out, although I do adore them, Beatles and fans and cops alike,” said Jackie.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1 Sept. 1964

‘Straw’

A fairly recent (and interesting) sense of straw showed up in a number of articles late in the week, following reports that the FBI was investigating a fundraiser connected to the mayor of New York City.

The early morning raid was part of a broad public corruption investigation by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Manhattan into whether Mr. Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign conspired with a Brooklyn construction company and the Turkish government to funnel foreign money into the campaign’s coffers, apparently through a straw donor scheme, according to portions of the search warrant obtained by The New York Times.
— William K. Rashbaum, Dana Rubinstein, and Jeffery C. Mays, The New York Times, 2 Nov. 2023

The above use of straw is an adjective, one that we define as “of, relating to, resembling, or being a straw man.” A straw man may be either “a weak or imaginary opposition (such as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted” or “a person set up to serve as a cover for a usually questionable transaction.”

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Hamartia’

This week’s word worth knowing is hamartia, defined as “a defect of character : error, guilt, or sin especially of the tragic hero in a literary work.”

In my own personal life I have not been able to forgive certain perpetrators for transgressions big and small. It's my hamartia. I have relinquished my power to these so many times due to my inability to forgive.
— Katori Hall, American Theatre (New York, NY), February 2015