In Italian and Spanish charisma is spelled without an ‘h’ – as carisma. More of it could be called truckisma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 29, 2025 I blogged about What makes a speaker charismatic? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines charisma as:

 

“a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure (such as a political leader).”

 

And a further explanation there is that:

 

“The Greek word charisma means ‘favor’ or ‘gift.’ It comes from the verb charizesthai (‘to favor’), which in turn comes from the noun charis, meaning ‘grace.’ In English, charisma was originally used in Christian contexts to refer to a gift or power bestowed upon an individual by the Holy Spirit for the good of the Church – a sense that is now very rare. These days, we use the word to refer to social, rather than divine, grace. For instance, a leader with charisma may easily gain popular support, and a job applicant with charisma may shine in an interview.”   

 

But the Cambridge Dictionary says that both the Italian and Spanish spellings omit the unpronounced letter ‘h.’ If you play with words like me, then this spelling suggests a bogus derivation from the word ‘car’ and that more than carisma would be called truckisma, as shown above via a cartoon.

 

Cartoons of a car and truck both came from OpenClipArt.