It is the duty of all who make their coin from writing to introduce the cliches that will go on to ruin otherwise competent writing in years to come. It is in this spirit that I offer the following neologisms, with examples and explication. I hope that these will serve the reader well.

It is well understood that once a name is given to something, its appearance becomes easier to spot. When we consider the heavy adoption of new terms over the last several years, this becomes clear.

As an example, the term gaslighting comes to mind. Of course, this term was already around long before it gained broad public understanding and frequent use (it comes from the 1938 stage play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton), but it wasn’t until the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election that the term gained traction—as made evident by a quick Google Trends analysis of the topic. Once it grabbed the general consciousness, we all saw gaslighting wherever we looked.

In opposing political opinions, in the actions of loved ones, in newspaper framing—we were all being gaslit. We might even look back through our lives and realize that we’ve been gaslit all along, just exactly how did these student loans appear around our necks?

Perhaps the earliest form of gaslighting any of us can remember is from childhood, when you were alone in a room with a friend. They farted, and yet they blamed it on you after you pointed it out, your friend boldly claiming in King’s English that, “He who smelt it, dealt it.”

Neologisms give us opportunities to see our lives in new ways. It helps us make clarity out of a random assortment of data. It’s not unlike learning the constellations. Once we have a picture associated with a grouping, we can easily pick out Cassiopeia and Orion and Scorpio. What’s more, we can orient ourselves within them. If we were told to learn where the B-type main sequence star Eta Ursae Majoris (also known as Alkaid) is in the night sky, we would have trouble picking it out from the vast, sparkling lights cast into the black dome above. But when we learn that it is the last star in the handle of the Little Dipper, we can find it almost immediately.

The Phrase as a Curse

Vsevolod Garshin’s Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin (1884) — Vsevolod Garshin’s *Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin* (1884)

However, we must never allow compelling neologisms to become shields from valid criticism and swords against just critics—though we must resign ourselves to the knowledge that the better a term is, the more likely it will be used in the mean art of malicious rhetoric.

If we return to the term gaslight, we will see exactly how the power of a term can become too attractive to those wishing to manipulate a situation. A public becomes so attune to the idea of gaslighting and so averse to those who light the gas, as it were, that we find it difficult to resist the word’s power to reframe our mindset.

Is it gaslighting to disagree with another person’s interpretation of events? Is it gaslighting to cover up an infidelity that a lover suspects?

In the first instance, possibly, but an outsider could only know that by investigating the heart of the suspected gaslighter, an impossible query. In the second instance, it is very likely gaslighting per the dictionary. But it exists in a drama so ancient as to likely have arrived a few dull years after the advent of monogamy. If we reframe it with the idea of gaslighting, we lose our human understanding of the tribulations that befall human life.

Once upon a time, an adulterer was an understandable human who made understandable errors, potentially forgivable even as we understand why their lover might find those errors impossible to forgive. But when we understand their actions as gaslighting, we only see the adulterer as an abusive monster—not merely one who committed some hurtful acts for reasons we can sympathize with.

To broaden our scope and appreciate the greater implications, we might consider how a neologism might take root and shelter those in power from their just desserts. The term conspiracy theorist comes to mind immediately.

The term, like gaslight, was in use long before it gained its current purchase. What’s more, conspiracy theory once only meant a theory of a conspiracy, not retaining the crystalline fixity it holds in our minds today. Nevertheless, it has come not only to mean a suggested conspiracy of people behind certain events, but one that is prima facie incorrect. To be a conspiracy theorist is to have and (what’s worse) share bad ideas—either from stupidity, credulity, deviancy, or a mixture of some or all of the above.

This is a powerful term because it really holds true for many things we would call conspiracy theories. But, then, does that mean there are no conspiracies? A convenient prevailing belief for those who conspire.

So just as we have outlined the purpose of neologisms, we have also outlined the concerns we might harbor if any were to take flight in the grand conversation.

But we must brave the risks of speech, lest we are silenced.

And so, in an effort to remain talking as long as one can, I propose the following neologisms to be borrowed and used, uncited, to go live their lives free in the world.

Water Politics

Definition: A disagreement in which the underlying position of two sides is intractable because it is ultimately about the well being of the individuals on either side—rather than any rationalizing or argumentation that is put forth to convince others.

Example: “When Jim starts talking about the divorce, I tune out. It’s just water politics.”

Whenever you see a disagreement where the stakes are zero sum and the sides are taken in self-interest, you are witnessing water politics at play. Yes, each side might construct intricate, even elegant moral arguments, but these are all beside the point due to their profound motivation.

In the world, water politics has been used to refer to what you think it might—political battles over water. But here, we use that only as a framework.

The fact is, if an oil company is destroying your water source, you will never be convinced through some historical justification for the march of capitalism and the essential good of private property. Without clean drinking water, you die.

Those dire stakes are what makes real life water politics so intractable for the belligerents. And that is what lends so much power to the neologism.

Ghost Therapy

Definition: Making a psychoanalysis of a broad group of people to undermine their position.

Example: “Ariana says all sports fans are exercising nationalism. I say she’s doing ghost therapy.”

Ghost therapy denounces an entire group of people through the language and reasoning of psychoanalysis. But unlike real psychoanalysis, where an individual is listened to for a long period of time, ghost therapy generalizes over an entire group of people, often without any long-term, sympathetic search to understand them.

When people claim that the Kennedy assassination was carried out by the C.I.A. rather than a lone nut, ghost therapists say they just can’t face the fact that random events might have dire consequences that no one can control.

Ghost therapy is hard to argue with, because it often has some level of plausibility. But no psychoanalysis of an entire group of people is plausible—as the art was developed on an individual basis.

It might be true that some people that believe Kennedy was killed by the deep state hold such beliefs to restore a sense of order to the universe. But that doesn’t mean that sharing that belief means you hold them for the same reasons.

And for those dying to see it in black-and-white: yes, ghost therapy is a form of ad hominem.

Hot Tag

Definition: When somebody helps you out when you need it most.

Example: “Thanks for the hot tag. I couldn’t have moved all this by myself.”

Hot tag is borrowed from the world of professional wrestling. There, it is used in tag team matches, where one team mate stands in the corner while the other wrestles the opposing team. To enter the match while standing in the corner, your team mate must tag your hand. Then, you switch positions.

A hot tag occurs when the opposing team has absolutely destroyed the active wrestler (legal man). And when it looks all but hopeless, they tag out to the fresh wrestler in the corner.

This is a favorite spot in professional wrestling due to the inherent relief and renewed excitement in the prospect of victory.

In that same spirit, hot tag can be used in exasperation at how helpful another person can be. Maybe you were 50 cents short for a coffee, and the person in line behind you gave you two quarters. Maybe you were woken up by the baby crying, and your partner tells you they’ve got it this time. There are many hot tags in life, and they deserve a term to celebrate them.

And what better world to borrow a term for that feeling from than the exuberant, emotional realm of professional wrestling?