Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #671Re: grok?
From: tarv... Tapani Tarvainen
Date: Mon, 01 Jan 1990 11:56
Date: Mon, 01 Jan 1990 11:56
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In article <12...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> pa...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Lansky) writes: >Can somebody enlighten me as the the [computer?] etymology of "grok". It's >a great word! It is originally Martian, and means literally "to drink" but has, due to the religious significance of water to Martians, become to mean something like to understand, comprehend thoroughly (so thoroughly that no English word can really convey the meaning). This comes from Robert A. Heinlein's book "Stranger in a Strange Land". (I've heard reports of it having been used earlier in some other book by him or someone else, but that's certainly the most famous occurrence.) -- Tapani Tarvainen (tarv...@tukki.jyu.fi, tarvainen@finjyu.bitnet)
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Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!tut!tukki!tarvaine From: tarv...@tukki.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: grok? Message-ID: <2561@tukki.jyu.fi> Date: 1 Jan 90 11:56:34 GMT References: <12588@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Reply-To: tarv...@tukki.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen) Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland Lines: 15 Posted: Mon Jan 1 12:56:34 1990 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit