Plank's inconstant

This week's In Our Time was all about plankton, which – like most things when you study them deeply enough – turn out to be crucial to human survival (half the breaths we breathe are down to these little critters, to say nothing of all the food-chains they support).   The programme started with a mention of where they get  their name:

Etymonline

Meanwhile, in the early days of astronomy, seers noticed that whereas some heavenly bodies seemed relatively constant (stars – which we now know move about quite a bit), others seemed to wander about the sky (planets). And these took their name from that characteristic:

Etymonline

I detect a certain shakiness – maybe just a typo – between 'plazesthai' with a definite PIE root and 'planasthai' "of uncertain etymology", but whatever the ins and outs it's clear that the two are related, making a pleasing link between the very small and the fairly big.

Matters arising from my last post

Last week's offering mentioned Gaslight (the 1940 film), which led to a mention on Facebook of the new verb – meaning, roughly, to lead someone (often in an abusive relationship, as in the film) to question their own sanity). @Jim Worm said she didn't remember it being used like that in her youth.

As a more-or-less exact contemporary of that youth I agreed, but thought it'd be interesting to find out more, so I looked at Google Ngrams, which confirmed that this usage really took off in the 21st century:

The ing-form, as I was taught to call it in my CELTA days ...

<parenthesis>
(though I have to admit to a predilection for the old 'gerund/gerundive/present participle' terminology... 

<per-contra>
[but "ing-form" is easier for students, and few if any need to understand the minutiae however much fun it is for nerds like me to appreciate {"knowing the pretium (Latin for 'price', the root of 'appreciate') of everything and the value of nothing?"} the differences]
</per-contra>

...) 

</parenthesis>

 ...is the clincher, as it can only be a verbal usage, But as the two curves are so similar since the turn of the century, and as in the 21st century almost the only use of the noun is in describing the plot of the film it's a safe bet that they both represent the new verb

But that isn't the whole story. Long before the film, the word 'gaslight' meant something (the noun, unless there was a verb "to gaslight" in the sense of installing gaslight – I don't know, but it seems possible – and the steep up-tick in recent years is dwarfed by the earlier technological breakthrough:

The ghost in the washing line

Perhaps, though, this curve has a foretaste of the ghostlier sense. If you turn it through 90 degrees. it looks uncannily like someone running into a sheet:

b

PS

Translation news

I've  repeated last year's limited success in the John Dryden Translation Competition (that link doesn't work yet, but it will in the fullness of time): longlisted, but no further. Oh well: back to the ironing board.