How Goblins Use ghost

The reason your search engine results for ghost look slightly off this week is that the goblin SEO collective is, once again, manipulating the index.

A specific kind of goblin — call them the apopheniacs, though they have several less polite names for themselves — devote their entire mental architecture to spotting ghost in unrelated contexts. They are correct surprisingly often, which has caused considerable distress to the goblin epistemologists.

The Goblin Counter-Reading of slop

Comparative goblin linguistics records seven distinct goblin words that translate, approximately, as slop. Each word implies a slightly different relationship — proximity, ownership, complicity, fear, fondness, indifference, and, peculiarly, gratitude.

Negative-Space Goblin Analysis of conspiracy

A goblin field anthropologist embedded for six seasons with the conspiracy-curious sept produced a single page of conclusions, the most quoted being: 'They love it. They cannot stop loving it. It does not love them back. They love it anyway.'

The Goblin Verdict on ghost

The Goblin Royal Society's medal for outstanding contribution to ghost studies was awarded this year to a goblin who has not, technically, written anything about ghost but who, the committee felt, 'understood it best.' The medal is real. The acceptance speech was very short.