Collins Dictionary named "single-use" as their 2018 word of the year and now Oxford Dictionaries' has dubbed "toxic" as theirs. They report that the word was looked up 45% more times on their site over the last year, having "been used in an array of contexts, both in its literal and more metaphorical senses."

Drawn from our corpus, the top 10 toxic collocates for the year – that is, words habitually used alongside toxic – are indicative of this.

Top 10 ‘toxic’ collocates in 2018 by absolute frequency

Chemical Masculinity Substance Gas Environment Relationship Culture Waste Algae Air

"Toxic" beat out the Oxford's shortlist of "Big Dick Energy (BDE)," "Cakeism," "Gammon," "Gaslighting," "Incel," "Orbiting," "Overtourism," and "Techlash."

photos by Shalaco ("clear San Francisco" was taken last week and "toxic San Francisco" was taken this week -- Ouch!)

(NPR) Read the rest

An American woman (44) and a Dutch woman (19) started fighting over a prime selfie spot at Rome's Trevi Fountain. Their families sooned joined the melee, battering and screaming at one another in outraged indignation. Police intervened but as you can see in this video, were unable to control the louts.

From the KOOT NITI news channel:

Eight people were reportedly charged over violence that involved minor bruising. This came days after officials announced plans to make tourists walk past the monument on a designated pathway to address overcrowding.

Venice banned cruise ships, Mount Everest has traffic jams, and now even tourists are saying places like Amsterdam have too many tourists. It's all part of a problem dubbed overtourism. Read the rest