The Oxford Word of the Year for 2018 is "toxic" which is defined as "poisonous."
The collocates (words habitually used alongside toxic) include: chemical, masculinity, substance, environment and even a toxic relationship.
"Toxic" first appeared in English in the mid-seventeenth century. The etymology tracks its poisonous roots. It came from the medieval Latin toxicus, and back to the Latin toxicum, which has origins in the Greek toxikon pharmakon which was the lethal poison used by the ancient Greeks for smearing on the points of their arrows. It is odd that pharmakon, meaning poison, did not move into Latin here, but toxikon did. The Greek word for "bow" was toxon., though it would seem that a word for arrow would have made more sense for the poison's use.
Karaoke (and karaoke bars) are a method (and a place) of singing songs by way of a special tape/CD,digital file player that eliminates the vocals from a song and leaves the music. The singer supplies her own vocal rendition of the song, usually with the lyrics appearing synchronized on a screen, much like a teleprompter.
VocoPro CLUB 9009G Professional Club Karaoke System
This is a loan word from Japan, where the activity first gained popularity. Karaoke is a combination of two Japanese words kara meaning empty and the shortened form of the word okesutora orchestra.
The usage came to prominence outside Japan rapidly in the 1970's as karaoke bars (alcohol being useful to drop stage fright inhibitions, no doubt) and karaoke machines (including those for home use, in case even alcohol won't get you on stage to be Beyonce) became popular around the world.
There are even karaoke systems made for an iPad (below), so you can sing in privacy in the bright acoustics of your home bathroom.
The Late Late Show with James Corden has taken "Carpool Karaoke" - which people have been doing in their cars since cars got radios - to a high professional level. One of my favorites is when James went to Liverpool with Paul McCartney and did a singing tour of the city of Paul's youth. They go to his childhood home where he wrote music with John Lennon. He even performs a few songs in a local pub to an amazed crowd.
With the YouTube closedc aptioning, you can do some karaoke along with James and Paul.
The Fall of Phaëthon on a Roman sarcophagus (Hermitage Museum - Wikimedia)
This week will have the best nights for watching the Geminid meteor showers which appear to come from the constellation Gemini, but these showers are caused by the celestial object 3200 Phaethon, which is an asteroid.
That is unusual and this is one of the only major meteor showers not originating from a comet. This asteroid has an orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid. And that association with the Sun is how the asteroid got its name.
The first asteroids to be discovered were named for characters from classical mythology, but names are no longer restricted strictly to mythological characters.
Phaethon was the Ancient Greek name for the planet Jupiter, a planet whose motions and cycles were observed by the ancients and often used in poetry and myth.
In mythology, Phaethon's father was the sun god Helios who granted his son's wish to drive the sun chariot for a day. Phaethon was unable to control the horses. To prevent the chariot from hitting and destroying Earth, Zeus knocked it out of the sky with a thunderbolt. Phaethon fell to earth and was killed.
These radar images of near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon were generated by astronomers at the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory on Dec. 17, 2017. Observations of Phaethon were conducted from Dec.15 through 19, 2017, at the time of its closest approaching December 16 when it was about 6.4 million miles or 10.3 million kilometers away, or about 27 times the distance from Earth to the moon. The encounter is the closest the asteroid will come to Earth until 2093.
