# Driving me crazy...I need help with a word **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 25, 2023, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662 "2023-11-25T01:37:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/1 "2023-11-25T01:37:01Z")
There is a word used commonly these days to refer to when someone changes the facts when relating a past event to make them look better. Revisionism fits, but it isn’t the word I’m looking for. I often hear the word used when referring to Trump. I had it in my mind this morning to use in a document, but now I’ve lost it!!! Anyone have any suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/2 "2023-11-25T01:40:10Z")
Embellish? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/3 "2023-11-25T01:41:11Z")
In my circle we call this ret-conning (retroactive continuity.) It’s a comic book term that is often used more broadly to describe putting a new spin on the past narrative to make the present one fit your desired message. ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/4 "2023-11-25T01:44:19Z")
Not really…but thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/5 "2023-11-25T01:45:16Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > In my circle we call this ret-conning (retroactive continuity.) It’s a comic book term that is often used more broadly to describe putting a new spin on the past narrative to make the present one fit your desired message. Yes, that is my second choice. I’ll go with that if I can’t remember the word I had in mind. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Tarataratara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Tarataratara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarataratara)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/6 "2023-11-25T01:51:40Z")
Gaslighting? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/7 "2023-11-25T01:54:11Z")
> [@Latimera](#): > > There is a word used commonly these days to refer to when someone changes the facts when relating a past event to make them look better. [Gaslighting.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/8 "2023-11-25T02:12:08Z")
> [@Tarataratara](#): > > Gaslighting? THAT’S IT!!! Thank you!!! ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/9 "2023-11-25T02:12:27Z")
Yessss…Thank you!!! ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/10 "2023-11-25T02:13:26Z")
Thank you everyone, and especially Tarataratara and Stranger. What a relief! ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/11 "2023-11-25T02:17:36Z")
Gaslighting isn’t where you change the facts when relating a past event to make yourself, or the events, look better. Gaslighting is where you claim that what’s going on is in contradiction to someone’s perceptions, for the explicit purpose of making them doubt their own perceptions. Example: “Thanksgiving is today. It’s always on a Friday. If you celebrated it yesterday you’re doing it on the wrong day. No, this isn’t turkey, this is pork, can’t you tell?” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/12 "2023-11-25T02:23:27Z")
Yeah. Gaslighting is totally not the idea the OP is looking for. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/13 "2023-11-25T02:23:27Z")
Perceptions or memories, for past events. The point is to get you not to trust your own mind. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/14 "2023-11-25T02:25:13Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > for past events. They _can_ be for past events but there’s no reason to specify past events. That meat that’s on your fork right now, that’s pork. No you’re not on the second floor, we don’t _have_ a second floor. This is the ground floor. ETA: yes exactly, to get you not to trust your own mind ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/15 "2023-11-25T02:27:43Z")
Gaslighting derives from a movie where a woman is made to think she’s crazy, in part by denying that she was seeing flickering gaslights and hearing attic noises, despite the fact that her husband was sneaking into the attic, rooting around, and causing the lights to dim when he was up there. > **[Gaslight (1944 film)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film))** > > Gaslight is a 1944 American psychological thriller film directed by George Cukor, and starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Angela Lansbury in her film debut. Adapted by John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, and John L. Balderston from Patrick Hamilton's play Gas Light (1938), it follows a young woman whose husband slowly manipulates her into believing that she is descending into insanity. > A remake of the 1940 British film of the same name directed by Thorold Dickinson, Cukor's ... ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/16 "2023-11-25T02:28:52Z")
I definitely think revisionism isn’t the word you are looking for. That is revising the establishment version of events or their interpretation, the revised version is not necessarily more or less accurate (that depends on how accurate the “established” version of events is) What the OP describes is being an unreliable narrator, but that’s not A word. Similarly it is a self-serving narrative. ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/17 "2023-11-25T03:15:07Z")
Thanks all. The situation I am dealing with is one where a project has gone south and they are trying to cover their ass by shifting the blame to other people. They are relating events that did not happen the way they say…including telling the people they are trying to shift the blame to, that they did things that they didn’t. Telling someone that they did X when they really did Y seems like gaslighting to me. No? ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/18 "2023-11-25T03:37:05Z")
I’m glad you found the word you were looking for – it’s so frustrating when something is on the tip of your tongue like that! That said, “gaslighting” is [really having a moment](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Gaslighting&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3) (the current use is biggest Ngram spike since the 1880s, when presumably it referred to the actual lighting of gas). It’s being overused these days to just mean lying, when the original connotation as depicted in the movies titled _Gaslight_ involved deliberately trying to drive someone crazy, or make them think they were crazy, a pretty specific type of psychological abuse. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/19 "2023-11-25T03:50:35Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > That said, “gaslighting” is [really having a moment](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Gaslighting&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3) (the current use is biggest Ngram spike since the 1880s, when presumably it referred to the actual lighting of gas). **It’s being overused these days to just mean lying** … Was coming in to make this exact point. The connotative spread of “gaslighting” has been accreting rapidly over the last five to ten years or so. The trend has been to move from a specific narrow meaning to a set of more general ones. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662/20 "2023-11-25T03:56:18Z")
Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss is a common meme nowadays. > **[Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss)** > > Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss is a parody of the phrase Live, Laugh, Love used in a variety of shitposts, including image macros, primarily on Twitter. The phrase first started on Tumblr in January of 2021, hitting a peak of popularity in mid-to-late... [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-me-crazy-i-need-help-with-a-word/993662.md?page=2)