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Pretentious.

Juvenile.

Useful.

Neat.

Perfectly cromulent.

[Nabubrush]

I'm down with quijybo, cromulent, and grelicious, though.

[smick]

I like using "Brazillian" as a numerical value.

[linnea]

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.

[littlefallsmets]

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.

[Nabubrush]

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.

[Arachno-capitalist]

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"

[Ben-San]

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.

[Nabubrush]

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.

[Doc]

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).

[jay-ell]

last post in: grok by doc

It made me laugh, and here I go ruining it for everyone else. 

Also: Asimov, yes. 

[jough]

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.

[jay-ell]

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. 

[jough]

I like the ones who can dissociate from reality.  It helps prevent (further) emotional scarring from the violent sexxin'.

[theinevitable]

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.

[Ben-San]

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".