From Fast Company:
If you think about the state of humanity and our future on the planet, there’s just one adjective that tidily sums it all up. That word is “toxic,” and the Oxford Dictionary has chosen it as the word of the year. This year, you could apply the word to the environment, the political debate, the discourse over masculinity, the rise of overt racism, office culture, dog food, almost anything, really.
Meanwhile, Dictionary.com chose an equally apt word, “misinformation,” which it defines as “false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead.” In other words, that favorite new expletive, Fake News!
Not to be outdone, Merriam-Webster opted for a word that is both slightly more hopeful and incredibly frustrating: “justice.” The dictionary claims it was one of the most looked-up words throughout the year, marking a 74% rise in people looking to define the word compared to 2017.
Link to the rest at Fast Company
Nobody asked PG about this subject, but if they had, he might have chosen paranoia, psychotic or deranged.
However, after thinking about it, a German word he learned from Mrs. PG many years ago is PG’s 2018 Word of the Year awardee: Weltschmerz
You gave my husband his new favorite word. https://www.redbubble.com/people/no-society/works/33561418-weltschmerz?grid_pos=1&p=mens-premium-t-shirt&rbs=7e6c3be0-486a-47bd-a013-4497f16f605a&ref=shop_grid&searchTerm=weltschmerz
I like PG’s words and would add one more: Hysteria.
Tell Mrs. PG I love her word … and I agree.
Are these REALLY supposed to be words of the year, or just words that liberals might use to describe negative things they believe conservatives were responsible for this year?
Could be. But I really have seen the word “toxic” used a lot this year. Excessively so. Granted, I mainly see it at a workplace blog that I read (most of the commentators there are leftwing, if that helps). But for some workplaces, “toxic” is a very good starting point as far as adjectives go. Visiting that site is a great reminder of how much I have to be thankful for.
It’s probably too much to hope for more exotic words to be the “words of the year.” Once upon a time, after a series of stories about shenanigans by officials of a dysfunctional city, I changed my work computer password to “kakistocracy.” And a later story about Dennis Miller inspired me change to change it to “bdelygmia” (he always likes to “go off on a rant,” as I recall). But I never see those sort of words in the wild. It’s just as well; none of my passwords ever make the lists of top hacked passwords.
Rhetoric: the ART of effective communication in speech and writing.
Although I suppose the definition will soon morph into, gobbledygook.
Dan
I’m tempted to say that – as for most years this century – the word should be hype. Choosing a word of the year is a rather silly but mostly harmless activity whose main purpose is to quietly hype up the dictionaries, on the idea that any publicity good thing. One word that is mostly forgotten is dignity, something institutions mostly put well below publicity.
(Apologies PG but I’ve got a bad knee at the moment so I felt like making a grumpy comment and this seemed worthy of one, though I do like your suggestion of deranged. Weltschmerz feels not quite right to me, not quite covering the deranged insanity of so much political rhetoric.)
Exactly, I don’t know how many people pay attention to this kind of thing, except perhaps for lazy journalists who need to quickly write an article for illuming deadline.
As for dignity, it depends.
Can dignity pay my bills?
If not, it’s of no use to me, though I suppose if I get to a place where I no longer have to worry about money, I’ll be able to afford to be dignified.