Dec 12, 2022 3 min read

I am a little disgruntled by Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year. They landed on “goblin mode,” which, technically, is two words. Goblin mode should be considered the Words of the Year, or the Phrase of the Year, but not the Word of the Year.

If you’ve never heard this year’s word(s) used in a sentence, you might be as out-of-the-loop as I am. I was full of question marks when I heard it.

For the record, goblin mode is defined as, “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.”

Apparently, I was in goblin mode without even realizing it. I don’t think the English language needs another expression for lazy.

Outside of Halloween, I don’t think I’ve ever used the word goblin in a sentence, let alone went into a whole mode about it.

I feel like goblin mode will be a gateway to other modes. Soon, the lexicon will be filled with Hobbits, elves, wizards and/or orcs.

“I handed in an assignment at the last possible moment before it was due. I was in total wizard mode.”

It’s gonna be all “Lord of the Rings” up in here.

Oxford almost chose “metaverse,” which seems to be more well-known than “goblin mode.” I’ve heard of the metaverse long before I heard of this year’s Word of the Year.

Mentioning the metaverse to Mark Zuckerberg would be very meta right now. If you mention the word to him on Facebook, you’d be talking meta on Meta.

Side note: I don’t think I’ll ever stop calling Facebook … Facebook. I don’t care what Zuckerberg calls it. I still say, “Hand me a Kleenex,” instead of “Hand me a facial tissue.” I think if someone says, “Hand me a facial tissue,” you are legally allowed to punch them in the face. I only recently stopped calling the photocopier a Xerox. This is starting to sound like a “remember when” column.

But I digress, like I do. While Oxford picked “goblin mode,” those fine people at Merriam Webster picked “gaslighting” as their Word of the Year.

Ironically, I feel like Oxford is gaslighting us by picking goblin mode. Meanwhile, gaslighting has been around a long time. The Angela Lansbury movie is from 1944. That’s a long time for a word to float around before getting Word of the Year status.

Last year, “vax” was the Word of the Year and that makes sense. It was a word that was on everyone’s lips, if not in their bloodstream.

Personally, I would have chosen Wordle as the Word of the Year. I feel like everyone is playing this very frustrating puzzle game.

I’ve been making lists of my favorite five-letter words. I’m like, “Index! Askew! Seize!”

I might be a little obsessed.

Isn’t it odd that Wordle isn’t five letters long? Wordle could never be the Wordle word, even if it gets into the dictionary.

Irony is another great five-letter word.