system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
(LOTR) What is the difference between orcs and goblins?

I get that the two races a different, but they seem to have a lot of similarities.  I get that goblins mostly live in mountains, and orcs don't, but after that I'm lost.  Do goblins serve Sauron as the orcs seem to?
gpt
They're not actually different, it's a linguistic choice of Tolkien's. He changed "orc" to "goblin" to carry the term into English from Westron. He goes back on that decision inconsistently in translating *Lord of the Rings*, using the terms more or less interchangeably.