IT kind of sums up the past 12 months when “justice”, “misinformation” and “toxic” emerge as 2018’s words of the year.
Dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster named justice as its top word after it saw a 74% jump in look-ups compared with 2017. Explaining its choice, the company said the concept of justice was central to many debates in the past year and covered racial justice, social justice, criminal justice and economic justice.
It added: “In any conversation about these topics, the question of just what exactly we mean when we use the term justice is relevant and part of the discussion.”
It was among the most consulted words on the website throughout the year and saw spikes in search volume in the wake of numerous news stories.
According to the dictionary, justice is defined as: “The maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments.”
It is mildly worrying that so many folk were unclear as to the meaning of the word, but hey ho. At least they had the sense to check.
Meanwhile Oxford Dictionaries have crowned “toxic” as their winning word and dictionary.com chose “misinformation”.
Toxic saw a 45% rise in the number of times the term was searched on oxforddictionaries.com, perhaps unsurprising in the year of the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury, increasingly venomous relations between Britain and the EU and the small matter of a dangerously polluted world in which climate change is wreaking havoc.
Oxford editor Katherine Martin said that toxic is a word that touches “on almost all the preoccupations we could think of that have characterised this year … literally and metaphorically”. Quite.
As well as the word’s literal use meaning poisonous, as in “toxic air,” “toxic chemicals” and “toxic waste”, it is also being used to describe workplaces, cultures, relationships and masculinity as driven by the #MeToo movement.
Or am I misinformed? Jane Solomon, a linguist-in-residence at dictionary.com, said their choice “misinformation” as their word of the year aimed to highlight the idea of the intent to mislead, and also how misinformation can be spread unwittingly.
She said: “Misinformation has been around for a long time, but over the last decade or so the rise of social media has really, really changed how information is shared. We believe that understanding the concept of misinformation is vital to identifying misinformation as we encounter it in the wild, and that could ultimately help curb its impact.”
Solomon added that “our relationship with truth is something that came up again and again” when studying look-ups on the site, which has 90 million monthly users. Other entries added in 2018 for “filter bubble”, “fake news”, “post-fact” and “post-truth”.
It seems that in a toxic world blighted by misinformation many are in search of truth and justice. Here’s to a happier new year.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here