Anyone and everyone who has been raised on a diet of Enid Blyton will perhaps not bat an eyelid at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) word of the year for 2022.
Anyone and everyone who is raising a crop of Terrific Teenyboppers or Moody Millennials is also not likely to gawk at this slang of the year.
The only ones to raise an eyebrow would perhaps be the rivals in the race, which did not quite make the grade. For better or for ‘metaverse’.
The winner, as we well know now, is not ‘Metaverse’ but that phrase with a blatant Blyton-esque ring to it – Goblin Mode.
A literary coinage that is perhaps as far removed from Blyton’s goblins Feefo, Jinks and Tuppeny as Timbuktu is from Tuscany. A term that bears more closeness of meaning and mien to propensities that go by the names of ‘gourmand’ or ‘glutton’.
For, as OED enlightens us, ‘Goblin Mode’ defines demeanour that is “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy.”
In 2009, the phrase first had its day out on Twitterverse. Its anointing now as the WOTY (Word Of The Year) spells its rebirth post Covid’s curse.
{{/usCountry}}In 2009, the phrase first had its day out on Twitterverse. Its anointing now as the WOTY (Word Of The Year) spells its rebirth post Covid’s curse.
{{/usCountry}}In the post-pandemic narrative, this may be the vocabulary that sums up humanity in hangover. Lockdown’s linguistic legacy, wherein self-gratification meets sloppiness that stayed on after #StayHome.
There are tribes of Tweeple that must surely be itching to chummily pat the blokes at OED for nailing it.
Of mommyhood & millennials
Mommyhood that has ever gallivanted into a teenager’s den would know the travails that the phrase ‘Goblin Mode’ entails. If gallivant is what you can do into a den that resembles a third-class railway platform strewn as much with the nation’s human baggage as with loads full of luggage. A den defined by zero legroom to walk thanks to strewn sneakers, socks, belts, backpacks and many a Croc causing the carpet area to be choc-a-block.
Top that with a bed strewn with coke bottles, cartons and crackling wrappers of eatables in varied stages of pregnancy. Some still fully bloated, some in the throes of delivery, having half delivered their contents of chips, cheese crackers, or chicken zingers into platters peeping out from beneath blankets and bedspreads.
Mommyhood has since long stared upon such landscapes, resembling railway platforms, to spot sprawled centre stage its progeny. Unkempt, unabashed, unfazed. Swag meets slovenly.
It is these progeny props and propensities, which parenthood has long since been bearing the brunt of, that have now been elevated to exalted mentions with their anointing in the annals of OED as ‘Goblin Mode’.
The curious case of My Big Fat Goblin Bedding.
Of pottering partners
Ditto this scenario, wherein holding centre stage is not progeny but a partner. And you have the marital manifestation of Goblin Mode.
The partner for life suffering Goblin Mode then resembles more a partner for strife.
In the case of a partner in Goblin Mode, substitute the coke cans with beer cans, and toss in the unholy mess that surrounds an LED screen beaming Messi & Co.
Who has not had a taste of the ‘self-indulgent’ inherent in Goblin Mode if one has pottered into the kitchen at an unearthly hour only to find a sloppily attired spouse or partner already lording it there with ready-to-cook kebab cartons, in the throws and throes of midnight greed, that to kith and kin pays no heed.
That’s the sort of scenario musician Kanye West must have run into when he broke up with actress Julia Fox, on the grounds of Goblin Mode.
The other tribes that must thus be chuffed at the choice of OED are relationship gurus and divorce lawyers. Any relationship rigmarole that they could not hitherto decode can now be blamed on Goblin Mode.
The curious case of ‘When Harry Met Slovenly’.