“Manifest,” meaning to dream or will something into existence, has been named this year’s word by Cambridge Dictionary, after a surge of celebrity-inspired popularity on social media.
Though far from a new coinage — as an adjective meaning “clear” or “obvious,” the word dates back in English to at least the 1300s — the dictionary’s decision rests on its newest meaning as a verb, which attests to the power of visualization and positive thinking in making fervently held dreams come to pass.
The singer Dua Lipa has attributed her success — which included headlining Glastonbury in June — to manifesting, saying: “Manifesting is a big thing for me. I stand very firmly in the belief of putting things into the world. Subconsciously, you just work towards them. Nothing’s ever too big.”
Photo: AP
Simone Biles, too, has been credited with manifesting her award-winning gymnastics career, after speaking of visualizing future success when she was a young girl.
Wendalyn Nichols, the publishing manager of the Cambridge Dictionary, said the word manifest had “increased notably in lookups” this year, being searched for 130,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary Web site.
“Its use widened greatly across all types of media due to events in 2024, and it shows how the meanings of a word can change over time,” she said.
Derived from French and Latin, the word, spelled “manyfest,” was used by Chaucer in the late 14th century in its adjectival sense meaning clear or obvious.
Shakespeare employed the word as both a noun and a verb, meaning both obvious and to make obvious. In King Lear, the Duke of Albany denounces Edmund for his “heinous, manifest, and many treasons,” while Twelfth Night’s tragi-comic figure Malvolio delights in supposed praise of his yellow stockings from Olivia, saying: “And in this she manifests herself to my love.”
The King James Bible of 1611 translates the first epistle of John to read: “In this was manifested the love of God towards us.”
The word can also be used as a noun, meaning the full list of a ship’s cargo, a usage that dates to 1561, while “manifest destiny” was a term employed by the US president Andrew Jackson in the 1830s to suggest it was ordained that American settlers should spread westward across the continent.
However, its most recent meaning, of “speaking your dreams into existence” is first recorded only in the early 20th century, associated with Spiritualism, and has become widespread only more recently.
Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology at Cambridge University, credited social media and the pandemic for popularizing the term and practice of manifesting, but cautioned that it had no scientific validity.
“Manifesting is what psychologists call ‘magical thinking’ or the general illusion that specific mental rituals can change the world around us. Manifesting gained tremendous popularity during the pandemic on TikTok with billions of views, including the popular 3-6-9 method, which calls for writing down your wishes three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon and nine times before bed.”
Van der Linden added that this procedure promotes obsessive and compulsive behavior with no discernible benefits.
But can we really blame people for trying it, when prominent celebrities have been openly manifesting their success?
“There is good research on the value of positive thinking, self-affirmation and goal-setting … However, it is crucial to understand the difference between the power of positive thinking and moving reality with your mind — the former is healthy, whereas the latter is pseudoscience.”
April 14 to April 20 In March 1947, Sising Katadrepan urged the government to drop the “high mountain people” (高山族) designation for Indigenous Taiwanese and refer to them as “Taiwan people” (台灣族). He considered the term derogatory, arguing that it made them sound like animals. The Taiwan Provincial Government agreed to stop using the term, stating that Indigenous Taiwanese suffered all sorts of discrimination and oppression under the Japanese and were forced to live in the mountains as outsiders to society. Now, under the new regime, they would be seen as equals, thus they should be henceforth
Last week, the the National Immigration Agency (NIA) told the legislature that more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) risked having their citizenship revoked if they failed to provide proof that they had renounced their Chinese household registration within the next three months. Renunciation is required under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), as amended in 2004, though it was only a legal requirement after 2000. Prior to that, it had been only an administrative requirement since the Nationality Act (國籍法) was established in
Three big changes have transformed the landscape of Taiwan’s local patronage factions: Increasing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) involvement, rising new factions and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) significantly weakened control. GREEN FACTIONS It is said that “south of the Zhuoshui River (濁水溪), there is no blue-green divide,” meaning that from Yunlin County south there is no difference between KMT and DPP politicians. This is not always true, but there is more than a grain of truth to it. Traditionally, DPP factions are viewed as national entities, with their primary function to secure plum positions in the party and government. This is not unusual
US President Donald Trump’s bid to take back control of the Panama Canal has put his counterpart Jose Raul Mulino in a difficult position and revived fears in the Central American country that US military bases will return. After Trump vowed to reclaim the interoceanic waterway from Chinese influence, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an agreement with the Mulino administration last week for the US to deploy troops in areas adjacent to the canal. For more than two decades, after handing over control of the strategically vital waterway to Panama in 1999 and dismantling the bases that protected it, Washington has
RSS