What about last year's word of the year - the Oxford Word of the Year in 2018 is toxic.
"The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.
In 2018, toxic added many strings to its poisoned bow becoming an intoxicating descriptor for the year’s most talked about topics. It is the sheer scope of its application, as found by our research, that made toxic the stand-out choice for the Word of the Year title".
The statistical analysis indicates that there was a 45% rise in the number of times it has been looked up on oxford dictionaries.com. What was it used to describe? Here is Oxford Dictionaries' Top 10 ‘toxic’ collocates in 2018 by absolute frequency:
Chemical
Masculinity
Substance
Gas
Environment
Relationship
Culture
Waste
Algae
Air
The article HERE describes how this word occurred in the the year's events - from the nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer and his daughter, to the spread of toxic waster from hurricanes, to businesses and people with harmful workplace environments and sexual harassment, to Brett Kavanagh's behaviour that got attention and the label of toxic masculinity.
The shortlisted words prove to be intriguing. I had to read the article to find out what most of these words mean. It is very interesting - find the article HERE.
gaslighting
incel
techlash
gammon
big dick energy
cakeism
overtourism
orbiting
We're looking at a few more aquarium pictures today.
