Oxford Dictionary 2018 Word of the Year

Can a word of the year tell us something about the #OmniBubble?  In Escaping Oz: An Observer's Reflections, I discussed how words reflect a society's mood.  Since my first economic law says that credit equals confidence and since the #OmniBubble is all about credit, what does the most recent (2018) word of the year tell us?  Going back a decade, here were the words of the year as selected by lexicographers at Merriam Webster or Oxford.

2008   Bailout

2009   Admonish

2010   Austerity

2011   Pragmatic

2012   Socialism/Capitalism

2013   Science

2014   Culture

2015   -ism (Socialism, Capitalism, Racism)

2016   Post-truth¹

2017   Feminism (Webster's), Youthquake (Oxford)

¹"Post-truth" relates to using appeals to emotion or personal belief rather than objective facts to shape public opinion. 

I'll leave readers to explore Escaping Oz: An Observer's Reflections for a detailed discussion of the impact and trend implied in of each of these words.

And the 2018 Oxford word of the year is....."Toxic."    Suffice to say, that a word like "Toxic" requires little interpretation.  I should also mention that a runner-up word was "gas-lighting", which is a manipulation of someone by psychological means into accepting a false depiction of reality.

Do words like "toxic" or "gas-lighting" convey a feeling of confidence?  If you want a sense of how the financial markets might progress and by extension, the #OmniBubble, the word of the year is an excellent barometer.  Have your dictionary nearby!