It’s worth pointing out that, on another level, the book is the story of Christ, but set in the future. Just as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is the story of the American Revolution.
Not a theory to which I subscribe, but I can see where one would find parallels. For me, this one falls into the “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” category.
At 16 and for a year or two thereafter I grokked grok.
Not anymore. I realized I didn’t really care that much for SIASL or the way the friend who turned me on to it bought into the philosophy of the book–which made me want to stay away from the word.
-Jen, 21
You know, I never really liked that one either. I unerstand the word, but I don’t grok it.
I always wanted to be Lazarus.
“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other ‘sins’ are invented nonsense.”
–Lazarus Long
…because the universe is just freaky-deaky that way, I was only yesterday thinking about ‘grok’ (having told the wife that I understood, nay grokked what she was telling me).
Did the term originate in Stranger in a Strange Land (where it is Martian for understanding something so deeply you know it in the essence of your being). Or does it predate that?
(my favourite useage is The Tick to Friendly Fire in the recent live-action series, ‘I grok your mouth-music mister’).
Yeah, that’s why I threw my age into the OP – as I said to Queen Tonya in the conversation that started this, although the book was (ahem) mind-blowing at the time, I suspect it wouldn’t hold up too well. Glad to have that confirmed without investing the four hours.
FWIW, when I use “grok,” it’s generally as an immediate response to a really visual, atmospheric movie – The House of Flying Daggers this past weekend, and, IIRC, Lost in Translation.
(It also means “To understand profoundly through intuition or empathy”)
I was in 3rd grade when I first read the history of Michael Valentine Smith. I found that I had already been able to grok, I just lacked the word to describe it. And I have been grokking ever since.
Grok on!
I do but, on principle, pretend to the user that I don’t.
Which is confusingly almost the same as “glork” (
To derive meaning of a word from the context it is used.)
It’s not actually debatable. In the RAH letters collection, GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE, RAH refers once to SIASL as his “sex and Jesus novel”.
Funniest line in The Tick:
“Mandingo, how I grok your mouth music!”
From Stranger in a Strange Land (this is just a small excerpt so Fair Use should apply):
Mahmoud (the linguist) is trying to explain “grok” to Jubal, who is giving sanctuary to Michael (the “Martian”). After explaining that the literal translation is “drink”, he continues.
I can dig it. The problem is, after I grok something, digging my way back out to think about it objectively again can be a bear.
Do I use the word? Only in a joke or when people around will understand it. Fairly limited.
I use the term. I use a lot of “cool” words from past decades that are so old they’re now uncool, but since I use them ironically, they re-cool. 
Grok is one, also hep, squaresville, dig, and referring to people as cats. (And in mixed company, “cats and kittens.”)
–Cliffy
P.S. I don’t think the thread should have been moved – origin aside, this is a question about linguistic usage.
I never used the word - even way back then.
Dang, I wrote a great reply to this, but I guess it got eaten.
When I was younger, my high school suffered a rash of graffiti… Grok, written on the blackboards in chalk, and on desks in pencil, and occasionally on the sidewalks and walls in Sharpie.
When people would ask what it was, I said it was Martian meaning “To Drink”.
It was only later that I understood it properly…
To Grok something one must know it, and know it deeply.
Know it so well it becomes a part of you. You cannot hate that which you grok, because to do so means you hate yourself.
Since then, I rarely use the word, since there are so few things I feel I grok