Social media has had quite the effect on the English language, and since language is mostly defined by the zeitgeist, it is no surprise that social media is having this profound effect.
Oxford Dictionaries is one of the more prestigious dictionaries that we have used in our lives and for a while now, the have been declaring the word of the year annually and it has featured some surprises like the word of the year in 2015 was an emoji.
2018 is almost ending and Oxford Dictionaries have announced their word of the year and it is the most millennial thing ever: Toxic.
Toxic is a word you see people use rather fervently on social media. Toxic is an adjective defined as ‘poisonous’ on Oxford dictionaries, however on social media. “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,” Oxford Dictionaries said in the post. Apparently they found out that there has been a 45% rise in the number of times the word toxic has been looked up upon on oxfordictionaries.com.
This word has been habitually used along other words in social media and oral sense when talking about chemical stuff, masculinity, substance, gas, environment, relationship, culture, waste, algae and air in order of frequency in 2018.
Toxic won the word of the year but other words that made the shortlist are interesting too, which include gaslighting, incel, techlash, gammon, big dick energy, cakeism, overtourism and orbiting. We have seen this being used on social media and they might win the word of the year probably next year, who knows.
