2018 Word of the Year (Oxford Dictionary)

The Oxford word of the year for 2018 has just been announced. It was chosen from a shortlist

of nine words that have come to prominence this year and today I'm going to teach you

this word. So don't go anywhere.

Every year the Oxford dictionary chooses a word of the year. In 2016 it was Brexit and

in 2017 it was fake news. The criteria for choosing this word are fairly simple. It must

reflect the mood or important events or issues of the passing year. And if you look back

to 2016 and 2017 I think they did a good job. And in 2018 I think they have done it again.

So the 2018 word of the year is 'Toxic'. Let's unpack why they chose this word. Well firstly

there was a forty-five percent rise in the number of times that it was looked up on the

Oxford online dictionary. And what this shows us is that there is a huge increase in the

number of people who want to understand this word and maybe use it. Now toxic is not a

new word, it's been around for a long time. Traditionally it's collocated with toxic chemicals,

toxic fumes, toxic substance but in 2018 there have been some brand new collocations with

toxic that we are going to look at right now. For example toxic masculinity. This is the

idea that men must play stereotypical male roles such as being unemotional, aggressive

dominant. And this is being contrasted this year with the #MeToo movement which has really

shone a light on these negative male practices. So an example sentence 'Toxic masculinity

is a real problem in my country.' Another new collocation is a toxic relationship. Now

this is a relationship that can be damaging either emotionally or physically. It could

be found at your workplace with a colleague, it could be with family with friends or it

could be with your romantic partner. It's a relationship that's really negative. For

example my brother has got a really toxic relationship with his flatmate.And the third

collocation that has become frequently used now is a toxic environment. This extends the

idea of the toxic relationship but it puts it into a place. So it could be your work

place, it could be at home, it could be anywhere. So it's a place that's damaging to you, it

could be emotionally, physically, mentally. Maybe at work there's a culture of bullying

well this would be a very toxic environment to work in. So as you can see this word has

a wide use and is deeply relevant to the times that we are living in today. Such turbulent

times a lot of conflict. So I can see why Oxford chose toxic to be their word of the

year. If you would like to try and use this word toxic with any of the collocations that

we have looked at. It could be relationship, environment, masculinity or any other use,

put it into an example sentence into the comments below and I will come down and have a look

at it and see if it's correct. I'll be back next Friday with a look at the other words

on the shortlist for word of the year. After all keeping you up to date with fresh modern

British English is what we do here at Eat Sleep Dream English. So I'm looking forward

to that video, it'll be out on Friday. Remember you can become a member of the Eat Sleep Dream

English YouTube membership scheme. Click the join button just below. I'm also on Instagram

and I am on Facebook.Come join me over there where we look at daily English content. But

until next time guys, this is Tom, the Chief Dreamer saying goodbye.