The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: Nabubrush on September 03, 2007, 04:44:50 am
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Man, somebody just used this word on me (in a way). It's been a while since I heard it, but it just always struck me like . . . I don't know, like don't we have enough words in our language? And doesn't it just mean 'get' or 'understand'? Does anyone here use it? Don't be embarassed to answer; I mean, I'm an idiot. What does my opinion count for?
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I've used "grok" in conversation before but not often.
Pretty much, man, I think it means more than "get" or "understand"... there's a level of affection to it, more than just knowing, there's something like love involved as well.
Female Star Trek fans would wear shirts that said "I Grok Spock".
This is the level on which I understand "grok".
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It's a Heinlein-ism. It basically means to comprehend fully.
In other words, when one of us uses it, the phrase "I can't grok it" means "I do not fully understand it, but I read Heinlein so I'm obviously pretty smart."
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I used it once or twice after I read the book, then stopped when I realised no one else was grokking it at all. It's a pretty nifty word in a way, I guess it kind of encapsulates (another nifty word!) all different kinds of understanding.
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I never used it but I like it in that it means complete understanding, much deeper than the superficial 'get'.
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Yeah, I understand what it's supposed to mean, and where it comes from. I'll be pretentious and let y'all know I read it when I was 13. I'm just saying that if the language needed 'grok', it wouldn't have waited till the 60s to come up with it. I mean, I find that 'understand' or 'get' conveys everything I need to say most of the time, and the rest of the time I can modify with 'really'.
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I was listening to an interview from the NPR show Fresh Air the other day and one of the two guys she was interviewing used it, and the other one teased him mercilessly. He insisted it was a cool word because Steve Jobs used it.
Damn, I'll bet this story would make a lot more sense if I could remember who it was... hmm, I think it was two guys who made the movie Ratatouille.
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For background, I had a friend who used this word a lot, and I had to drop him. Knew him for 30 years, too. It's just that in order to use it, he had to fuck*ng shoehorn it into a sentence. It's just so jarring.
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I used it in conversation once, then said "did I just say grok? What does that even mean?" The other person didn't know. Also, as applied above, I was using it totally wrong - I was using it to refer to the gross gunk and schlock that washing up on the river bank in the city. I was using it as a conjunction of those words. I think I said "all that grok and sludge."
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For background, I had a friend who used this word a lot, and I had to drop him. Knew him for 30 years, too. It's just that in order to use it, he had to fuck*ng shoehorn it into a sentence. It's just so jarring.
Did you know that nabu once interrupted coitus completely because the woman made a grok sound? He burned her village of orphans and used the ashes in a lubricant jelly.
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Did you know that nabu once interrupted coitus completely because the woman made a grok sound? He burned her village of orphans and used the ashes in a lubricant jelly.
I was tough but fair. It had to be done. It was necessary to burn the village in order to save it.
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...I'm just saying that if the language needed 'grok', it wouldn't have waited till the 60s to come up with it.
I'm pretty sure "unibrow" didn't show up until the 90's, and it is completely indispensable.
(But don't say grok, that's lame.)
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I'm with Nabu. It's unnecessary and irritating and is basically only used to call attention to how cool/smart/worldly the person is for having read Heinlein, in social circles where that's the sort of thing that's considered cool. I know some people who say it, and I always have to suppress the urge to roll my eyes or to vomit.
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i would like to think that I am at an age/of a generation that... I am the only person who has read that book.
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I have heard it, and think it's kind of lame.
I agree with Nabu that we already have words that do this. Memo to Science Fiction Authors: Do Not Make Up Slang.
Then again, William Gibson invented all kinds of words for things that didn't exist at the time, but that we now use in everyday life. Words like...cyberspace. But I don't think prescription drug abuse will ever be called "doing hexagons." So I guess you win some, you lose some in that arena.
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I'm down with quijybo, cromulent, and grelicious, though.
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I like using "Brazillian" as a numerical value.
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I have heard it, and think it's kind of lame.
I agree with Nabu that we already have words that do this. Memo to Science Fiction Authors: Do Not Make Up Slang.
Then again, William Gibson invented all kinds of words for things that didn't exist at the time, but that we now use in everyday life. Words like...cyberspace. But I don't think prescription drug abuse will ever be called "doing hexagons." So I guess you win some, you lose some in that arena.
Man, I wish I could score some derms. I'm gonna need some when I get my coveted laser skin resurfacing for my cute little mug.
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A good friend of mine is an aspiring science-fiction novelist and...
His stuff isn't amazing but it's solid. A little redundant but sturdy superhero-meets-space-military-fiction kinda stuff.
...but he just loves making up sciencefiction words for stuff. And it's often very distracting.
I think the key is:
If there is no word for the thing you have envisioned, go wild and make up a word.
If there is a plain-English term that works for something, for Christ's sake, use that.
Do not make up stuff just to make it up.
Creating new words for lengths of measure and time and so on is not necessary at all.
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Well, and grok is a Martian word. Hey, Bobby - I don't speak Martian. Don't give me a few words in Martian to give me the 'feel'. Write the whole book in Martian if it's so goddamn important.
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I like using "Brazillian" as a numerical value.
For me, its Texas. As in, "A-CAP costs something like $TEXAS per semester, and they still dont give us toilet paper"
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The existence of "grok" within Stranger In A Strange Land is fine insofar as the book presupposes that there is a level of spiritual comprehension and understanding heretofore undiscovered by humanity and therefore not adequately described by any existing words.
However, taken in that way, it is as accurate to say "I really grokked what the author was saying" as "I really injected what the author was saying". It's a word that describes an activity other than what you actually did, which was understand.
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The existence of "grok" within Stranger In A Strange Land is fine insofar as the book presupposes that there is a level of spiritual comprehension and understanding heretofore undiscovered by humanity and therefore not adequately described by any existing words.
However, taken in that way, it is as accurate to say "I really grokked what the author was saying" as "I really injected what the author was saying". It's a word that describes an activity other than what you actually did, which was understand.
Nice. I should have just had you look at my thread before I posted it. You clearly gro . . . sorry.
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Why are we of all people criticising a word for being unnecessary though? I don't like the idea of a purely functional language. Although some of you might think this is a double-plus-good thing.
Using words like grok doesn't just communicate what the word means it implies a shared background and understanding, which can often be very wanky yes but it is still an additional layer of meaning.
I'm with you on making up sci fi terms too much though. The intro to Nightfall summed it up pretty nicely by saying that it was going to use terms like cars, miles and computers on the understanding that this was an alien planet that had nothing like our cars, miles and computers but it was better than making up gibberish. Asimov is the Man. (Silverberg isn't so bad either).
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last post in: grok by doc
It made me laugh, and here I go ruining it for everyone else.
Also: Asimov, yes.
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I think I've been hearing "grok" more and more from fellow geeks, and it always sounds a little jarring to me. It takes me out of the movie.
Also, I dated a girl in college who used to refer to our lives in terms of a movie, like every time we interacted it had to be a "scene." I was her leading man, etc., but then she started fuck*ng the director and just took the whole film to a different plane of reality.
Anyway, yeah, grok is pretentious.
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I think I've been hearing "grok" more and more from fellow geeks, and it always sounds a little jarring to me. It takes me out of the movie.
Also, I dated a girl in college who used to refer to our lives in terms of a movie, like every time we interacted it had to be a "scene." I was her leading man, etc., but then she started fuck*ng the director and just took the whole film to a different plane of reality.
Damaged goods, man. That is freakish. Have you ever dated a normal girl? That I would put on par with "I look human but I am really a vampire."
Alternate realities are never a good sign in a romantic partner.
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I like the ones who can dissociate from reality. It helps prevent (further) emotional scarring from the violent sexxin'.
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yeah, totally. I only date insane chicks.
Now I am going to start insinuating that this is due to plan instead of accident of nature.
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What does it mean to be fuck*ng the director in the context of thinking life is a movie? The only options I can think of are "conspiracy nut doing it with a Freemason Grand Master" or "Mary".
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What does it mean to be fuck*ng the director in the context of thinking life is a movie? The only options I can think of are "conspiracy nut doing it with a Freemason Grand Master" or "Mary".
You keep your slimy hands off the GM, you hear? We run the world.
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"Mary".
I was going to say Nun, but I guess you might as well go to the top.
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Let's hope it doesn't mean Dad.
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I think the key is:
If there is no word for the thing you have envisioned, go wild and make up a word.
If there is a plain-English term that works for something, for Christ's sake, use that.
Do not make up stuff just to make it up.
Creating new words for lengths of measure and time and so on is not necessary at all.
I agree with you mostly, but I think that it can really depend upon the writer and their execution. Philip Pullman's stuff (His Dark Materials) is full of arcane words for everyday things and concepts, but it still comes across very well.
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The only word invented by an artist in the last 20 years that I actually use often in everyday speech is 'crunk'.
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The only word invented by an artist in the last 20 years that I actually use often in everyday speech is 'crunk'.
The fake all-purpose swear word that Conan made up when his show was new? Or was that spelled with a k?
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crunk is lovely.
as are most other rap words. Oh man, those rap people.
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Would you be all hyphy with me, inev? We can get stupid together.
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I suspect crunk juice is a little salty.
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Would you be all hyphy with me, inev? We can get stupid together.
Do you ghost ride with regularity, smick?
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damn, dude, we can get wicked dumb.
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Do you ghost ride with regularity, smick?
Yes, but only at work. I ghost ride my task chair frequently.
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I suspect crunk juice is a little salty.
You suspect? Or do you know?
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In other words, when one of us uses it, the phrase "I can't grok it" means "I do not fully understand it, but I read Heinlein so I'm obviously pretty smart."
best definition ever.
to be honest, i have attempted to use the word in context before, but have always failed due to circumstances.
But I don't think prescription drug abuse will ever be called "doing hexagons."
but it HSOULD be. totally.
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Well hey, Ark. How the hell are you?
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Well hey, Ark. How the hell are you?
Yeah! Hi, Ark!
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Ark is that guy from small times that we see so rarely now we make a big deal of it when he shows his face.
Hi Ark, we love you man, don't be such a stranger.
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No! Don't you know he likes it if you whip him and call him a asslick? Thanks a lot guys, now he won't be back for six months.
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Fuck it, bumped because Ark was here. Hi, Ark.
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so, does anyone grok 2008 yet?
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I re-read this book for a book club since I started this thread, and upon careful examination, it turns out that no Earthling should ever use the word grok.