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To paraphrase the words of the inimitable Britney Spears, a word like this should wear a warning.
It's that time of year when talking about the world sift through the things English speakers have fixed on and settle on a string of letters to the top of the world in 2018. Oxford, which thing the hopeful Youthquake in 2017, this year on the word toxic – as in poisonous, venomous, morally destructive and corrupting.
Oxford's rubric for making its choice is that of the word must sum up the ethos, mood or preoccupations of the preceding months. The word does not need to be newly invented. and toxic is a descriptor, explains Oxford editor Katherine Martin, that touches "almost all the concerns we could think of that this year … literally and metaphorically."
There is the ongoing reckoning with sexual harassment and patriarchy (addictive masculinity, toxic relationship). There are concerns about what they are doing in the environment and theirtoxic gas, toxic waste). There are poison-tongued extremists filling the divisive rhetoric about issues ranging from, to, you know, the ongoing reckoning with sexual harassment and patriarchy (toxic environment, toxic culture).
Online trolls are toxic. Chemicals are toxic. Even the algae is toxic. "It's not a fun one," Martin explains.
In retrospect, people could have seen this one when Oxford thing post-truth in 2016, a prescient selection that makes you feel like you're in the middle of the blurring of truth and fiction that continues to create instability in the macro and the micro, like tectonic plates slowly ripping into one another under our feet. (Merriam Webster, who opted for dumpster fire to sum up that particular jaunt around the sun.)
There is a sense, both in the U.S. and the U.K., where Oxford is based, which has a radioactive "polarization in our society," says Martin, "and what people are seeing in an inability to communicate with your neighbors."
There, of course, were bright spots in what sometimes felt like a cultural hellscape.
Martin notes that while a Youthquake – meaning "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people" – did not end up materializing last year in Commonwealth countries year in the US Relentless Teenagers in Parkland, Fla., said they had plenty when it came to complacency around mass shootings and violence in America. Young people also organized and voted in turnout.
Most of the lexical items on Oxford's "short list" are just as dismal as their main pick. IncelA word describing "a member of an online community of young men who has been sexually unable to be translated. TechlashThe effect of smartphone technology on the use of smartphones on social media.
The meaning of gaslighting? Psychological manipulation, often by powerful politicians, makes their own sanity and reality. Overtourism? People ruining the world's most magical places because they're so keen on bagging another experience. Orbiting? At turns, the internet can feel like it's a bunch of online creepsters.
There is at least one word in the world. Remember that time icon Ariana Grande complimented her then-fiancee and SNL member cast Pete Davidson for his "BDE, "An acronym for that went viral and spun traditional notions of masculinity into new and fascinating territory? That was fun? Right?
It's a bummer that 2018 was toxic. "But it would be disingenuous," says Martin, "to claim this was a sunny year."
