Can ‘Goblin mode’ really be word of the year?

MANY readers may be stumped when asked if they know what the term ‘goblin mode’ means – but they soon will.

Slang for behaviour that is ‘unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations’, it has been shortlisted for word of the year by Oxford University Press lexicographers. It is one of three options – the others being #IStandWith and metaverse – which will be voted for by the public for the first time. Word of the year, loosely defined as it includes slang terms, is deemed as capturing ‘the mood and ethos of the last year’.