PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

To use an understatement, I like words. More than photos. More than charts or graphs. More than tables of numbers.

To say I like words does not necessarily mean that I use them accurately in all cases. I just like them.

So, it was that I was interested in a two examples of commentaries on words this week.

One was in a column by Erik Wemple, the Washington Post’s media critic appearing under the headline, “Spicer is still trying to gaslight American about Trump.”

The column referred to the fact that former press secretary for Donald Trump, Sean Spicer, had written a new book, Briefing, which includes this incredible paragraph:

“In Spicer’s telling, Trump has a ‘deep vein of compassion and sympathy.’ He is a ‘man of Christian instincts and feeling.’ He is a man who showed his humanity in a phone call after Spicer’s father passed away. ‘The sincere compassion and empathy in his voice was something I will never forget,’ the former press secretary writes. ‘I wish more people saw that side of him.’”

That is a tall tale, but back to a new word for me, gaslight, which, in this case, is used as a verb in the headline.

According to the dictionary, the meaning is:

“To cause (a person) to doubt his or her sanity through the use of psychological manipulation.”

I have never used that word, but may choose to do so in the future.

The second example of a word is drawn from Ben Zimmer who writes a weekly column, “Word on the Street” for the Wall Street Journal. This time, he asked this question:

“Is there anything that can’t be weaponized” these days.

Then, he went on to provide examples of the use of the word ranging from politics to tennis.

He said the suffix “ize” has been attached to the noun “weapon” for more than 80 years. That makes the word a verb.

And, that is precisely what bugs me – adding “ize” to words all over the place.

For example, better, I say, to write “establish priorities” than to use the word “prioritize.”

If I worry about stuff like this – the use of the words “gaslight” and “weaponize” — you may say that I have too much time on my hands.

I’d say you are right, but be careful — I might gaslight or weaponize you!