Woke words like ‘gaslighting’ and ’emotional labor’ are dumbing down our language, top researcher says

Using ‘therapy speak’ terms like gaslighting and emotional labor could be dumbing down the English language, a top researcher has warned.

Dr Robert Morgan, a lecturer and ethics expert at the University of Leeds in the UK, said the currently definition of the words is far from the original meaning, which harming our ability to communicate properly.

While acknowledging that language is constantly evolving, Dr Morgan said he is ‘concerned’ about words losing their meaning when their original sentiment was very specific and had a unique purpose.

‘When the meaning of this word changes, we don’t have another way of describing it,’ he said.

Dr Morgan has also hit out at the use of the word woke — used to describe being progressive — as he says its original meaning, alerting people to avoid danger by ‘staying woke’, is being overwritten.

The phrase ‘stay woke’ was first used by Blues singer Lead Belly in the 1930s as a warning to fellow African Americans to stay vigilant when moving through more dangerous parts of the US.

With the specific function of warning against danger, ‘woke’ was an important and useful word, Dr Morgan argued.

The meaning of the word has changed since then, to mean being aware of racial injustice, to general progressiveness, as well as a disparaging word used by right-wing commentators.

According to the paper, people are now ‘disarmed’ of a word to use to promote safety. 

‘Gaslighting’ once referred to a very specific type of emotional abuse, originating from the 1938 play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton. 

In the play, a husband attempts to convince his wife that the dimming gad lights are figments of her imagination to manipulate her into changing her perception of reality.

Now, it is used much more casually to refer to ‘lying’ or ‘misleading’ in political and social media discourse, Dr Morgan said in a paper published in The Philosophical Quarterly. 

People experiencing a specific type of abuse now may not be able to identify or understand what is happening as easily, Dr Morgan said.

Another phrase highlighted by Dr Morgan was ’emotional labor’, first used by sociologist Arlie Hochschild in the 1980s to describe the additional effort required by hospitality workers to manage their emotions to keep customers happy.

It has since been co-opted on social media to refer to demanding tasks that usually fall more on women than men, including housework and managing social relationships.

Dr Morgan said: ‘Emotional labor was another useful phrase, but the worry is that when we start using it in this really broad way to mean lots of different things, we now don’t have a phrase to refer to that original phenomenon.

‘For example, if you’re a barista and you feel exhausted after a day of being expected to smile at every customer, you might be experiencing the downfalls of emotional labor in its original sense, but no longer be able to express this to your colleagues or even identify it.’

Dr Morgan urged people to bear in mind the history of key terms they’re using and ensure the context they are using them in is correct.

He is not the first to warn about changes in language. The CDC has been criticized previously for using terms like ‘pregnant people’ instead of ‘pregnant women’, with some saying the change is confusing.