Weird Words - like Grok

Grok and Deconstruction

Maybe this is a coincidence or maybe not. Yesterday I was prompted to consider the damage caused by the invasion of the deconstructionists into academia decades ago. I looked up Iowahawk's old piece, College Profs Denounce Western Culture, Move to Caves.

Lo and behold, the first example of a professor to take deconstruction seriously in his own life named himself Grok:

Cambridge, MA - Two years ago this month, Alan Lowenstein, associate professor of philosophy at Harvard University, came to a fateful conclusion. "I suddenly realized that the oppression of western technology extended to my own life," he explained. "That's when I got rid of my computer, threw away my Brooks Brothers suits, changed my name to Grok and moved into a cave."

A passionate critic of Euro-American "linear thought," Grok is one of a growing number of college professors around the nation who have relocated to caves, mud huts and makeshift sweat lodges to demonstrate their disdain for western culture and technology. For Grok, 44, the move to a cave was a natural step in his intellectual progression.

"My dissertation at Columbia synthesized the seminal works of Jacques Lacan, Derrida, and Michel Foucault," says Grok, referring to the influential French deconstructionist philosophers. "I was able to prove, conclusively, that conclusiveness is not conclusive."

Was this Grok ahead of his time?

So, where did the word 'grok' come from?

Back in 2010, Ann Althouse wrote about another word:

Glomming. . . it checks out in Urban Dictionary.

Glom is a funny word. I've always mixed it up with grok. Only grok is a Martian word.

OH! It's a Martian word! Does that remind anyone of Elon Musk?

One of Musk's acts of villainy this week (according to leftists, who really, really hate him) was to suggest that people not contribute to Wikipedia, saying that the organization should "restore balance". In September, David Strom wrote a piece noting Daily Caller's investigation showing that Wikipedia Employs Left-Wing Groups to Edit Controversial Topics.

But let's not hold a grudge. Here's a link to the wiki on Grok, which is quite lengthy, considering that it's mostly about how to define a word.

Grok (/ˈɡrɒk/) is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment",[1] Heinlein's concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that "the book's major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term."[2] The concept of grok garnered significant critical scrutiny in the years after the book's initial publication. The term and aspects of the underlying concept have become part of communities such as computer science.

It's Heinlein!

Etymology

Robert A. Heinlein originally coined the term grok in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land as a Martian word that could not be defined in Earthling terms, but can be associated with various literal meanings such as "water", "to drink", "to relate", "life", or "to live", and had a much more profound figurative meaning that is hard for terrestrial culture to understand because of its assumption of a singular reality.[7]

According to the book, drinking water is a central focus on Mars, where it is scarce. Martians use the merging of their bodies with water as a simple example or symbol of how two entities can combine to create a new reality greater than the sum of its parts. The water becomes part of the drinker, and the drinker part of the water. Both grok each other. Things that once had separate realities become entangled in the same experiences, goals, history, and purpose. Within the book, the statement of divine immanence verbalized among the main characters, "thou art God", is logically derived from the concept inherent in the term grok.[8][9]

Heinlein describes Martian words as "guttural" and "jarring". Martian speech is described as sounding "like a bullfrog fighting a cat". Accordingly, grok is generally pronounced as a guttural gr terminated by a sharp k with very little or no vowel sound (a narrow IPA transcription might be [ɡɹ̩kʰ]).[10] William Tenn suggests Heinlein in creating the word might have been influenced by Tenn's very similar concept of griggo, earlier introduced in Tenn's story Venus and the Seven Sexes (published in 1949). In his later afterword to the story, Tenn says Heinlein considered such influence "very possible".[11]

You could get really carried away by going deep into all the additional meanings and usages of this word. Including, of course, its usages in the world of computers.

Do you generally think of this word as a verb, a noun, or some other part of speech?

Weekend Reading

Don't make assumptions about words. An oldie, but a goodie. Thread.

This is hilarious pic.twitter.com/P66ECvH7cK

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) December 24, 2024

15 Words You Think You're Pronouncing Correctly (But You're Probably Not) except maybe if you're Martian.

Including 'boatswain'.

Plus

14 Archaic Christmas Carol Words, Explained

Know what you’re talking about when you sing “troll the ancient Yuletide carol.”

Try to spend some time doing something physical this weekend. Preferably with some kids. Especially if they're boys.

Want to Raise Successful Boys? Science Says Do This (but Their Schools Probably Won't)

This is a story about successful kids (especially boys), common sense, and research.

Most of us spend hours each day sitting at work. Science says it’s killing us, and we have developed all kinds of fads to combat it–from standing desks to smartphone alerts to get us up and moving.

Armed with that knowledge, however, what do we force our kids to do each day at school? Sit still, for six or eight hours.

Now researchers say that mistake leads us into a three-pronged, perfect storm of problems:

I don't think these problems are limited to boys, or to kids. Have some fun!

Music

Good King Wenceslas

The Feast of Stephen is right after Christmas.

From the piece on archaic words in Christmas carols above:

Dinted // "Good King Wenceslas"

The Lyric: “In his master’s step he trod / Where the snow lay dinted”

Dint, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means “A mark or impression made by a blow or by pressure”—or, put another way, dinted means “dented.”

Rhymes with "hinted".

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, December 21, A bold educational change in New Zealand

No research into deconstruction currently needed.

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:01 AM

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