Goblin
(Image: Achim Raschka via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 AU)

The end is nigh for 2022, and while many try to keep their head above water Oxford lexicographers say sink into your less gracious side.

“Goblin mode” has been awarded the 2022 Oxford Word of the Year (WOTY), a tribute to humans preferring to reject social norms and expectations in favour of “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy” behaviour.

“It’s a zeitgeist thing. People are just going to live how they want to live,” senior researcher from Australian National Dictionary Centre (Oxford English Dictionary’s Australian edition) Mark Gwynn tells Crikey.

“Whatever is going in the world, they’re just going to hang out as a picture-perfect version of themselves in their uggs and shorts and say: ‘I’ve gone goblin mode today.’”

The term was on a shortlist of three compiled by Oxford and put to the public in a dictionary first. More than 340,000 voted between the winning word and runners-up “metaverse” and “#IStandWith”. It was nothing short of a landslide with “goblin mode” securing 93% of the vote.

Associate professor in linguistics at Macquarie University Annabelle Lukin says the choice indicated a desire to validate cultural habits by giving them names — a particularly pandemic-related predilection. Terms such as “social distancing”, “antisocial distancing” (which Lukin describes as “using lockdown to avoid seeing people you don’t like”), “quarantinis” (cocktails made from whatever random ingredients you have at home) and “Covidiots” (someone not taking the pandemic seriously) all fit the bill.

So what does goblin mode have going for itself?

Oxford University Press traces the word back to 2009 when a Twitter user described a sugar-induced high as “full hyperactive goblin mode”. The term relaunched in 2021 with a new sense of self, but it was not until February this year that it went viral with the award-winning definition. A doctored headline falsely claimed actor Julia Fox and musician Kanye West were no longer because of Fox’s tendency to go “goblin mode”.

And so began circulation of an apt term used to reject a return to normality. (The Collins Dictionary put our rosy reality into perspective earlier this year when it declared “permacrisis” WOTY.)

Image SUPPLIED BY Oxford University Press

Despite Oxford University Press laying down the law of the land with a definition, some Twitter users took the opportunity to dredge up the word’s past.

“Normally when words or expressions have risqué senses it’s the kiss of death to give prominence to it,” says professor of linguistics at Monash University Kate Burridge.

But dictionaries are no stranger to the chameleon nature of words, especially those that stem from slang. Extremes and expletives — or words considered vulgar — often move from marginalia to the mainstream. And their meanings often morph in the process.

Take “larrikin”. Originally used to describe someone in a razor gang, the word has undergone a process of amelioration. Although it still nods to bad behaviour, its meaning has flipped from sinister to mischievous.

The dictionary is designed as a catch-all for various iterations of a word — call it a linguistic lineage — and even for 12-year-old words like goblin mode, there are nuances.

Gwynn says that if (or when) goblin mode was given a permanent place in the Oxford English Dictionary, it would be interesting to see what the OED “digs up” and how it approached “early evidence” of the word.

Despite taking home the title of WOTY, goblin mode does not yet have a formal entry in the OED and might not for a few years. Traditionally five or six years was the benchmark for a given word to make it into print. That timeline was based on the release of hard-copy editions. Although now less binding, the definitional process is much the same.

Both the OED and its Australian affiliate use a corpus to capture, track and ultimately define a word through a series of example sentences. If there’s distinct enough meanings, one word might get multiple sentences.

So is goblin mode tracking to be set in a digital edition of dictionary stone? Gwynn says: “Maybe.” It’s currently filling a function, but there’s no telling if it will have popular currency next year.

Would you have voted for “goblin mode”, “metaverse” or “#IStandWith” — or none of them? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.