Rachel Maddow just used the term "grok"

[Gothmog]

This makes me smile

[Beakybird]

1. I thought men were from Mars and women are from Venus.

I'm surprised!

[smb]

5. Except Trump, Who Is From Uranus nt

[wcmagumba]

2. Sharing water is next you know....

[mitch96]

3. No stranger to a strange land, eh? nt

[question everything]

4. Meaning, please? For the untwittering ignorant?

[Maeve]

6. From Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" SF classic

Grok means drink, but also to know something completely. To really get something, totally understand

[aidbo]

7. Grok is a neologism coined in the book "Stranger in a Strange Land"

Robert Heinlein

It essentially means to know something as one know one’s self. Ie to grok something is to know and understand it completely. That’s the way I remember it meaning at least. It may have been defined more precisely in the book.

The book is pretty good, by the way and worth the read if you can get past the slightly sexist tones of the writer (it was written in the 50s or 60s I think).

[Dave Starsky]

17. I tried to read it a few years ago. It just doesn't hold up.

Lots of dated language, obnoxious characters, and "witty" dialogue that I suppose was pretty edgy way back in the mid-20th century, but now it's just cringy. It's like reading the Playboy party jokes from an issue during the Kennedy era.

[aidbo]

23. yeah i must have read it about 30 years ago now..

[myccrider]

32. Sigh

Yeah, a lot of the old SF/F tales I loved back in the day have been visited by the ‘sucks fairy’ when I’ve tried to reread them. Heinlein was more progressive wrt sexism and racism for his time. Part of why I loved him as a teen in the 60s was his female characters - oh goody, girls who can do things besides screeching/fainting, being a sex object and getting coffee, or just being absent altogether. Sucks fairy got him, though.

Funny corollary, I watch some of those younger people on YouTube who listen to old (read ‘my‘) music and ‘react’. In a couple of recent videos, the generational differences in what was shocking and what wasn’t popped up.

These two college kids, both guys, listened to The Kinks "Lola" (for those who don’t know it’s about a guy falling for a ‘girl’ and discovering she’s trans but being ok with it. It was a extremely edgy at the time). The kids understood the ‘story’ but didn’t blink an eye and just talked about the instruments, beat, musicality, etc. Later, they listened to The Police’s "Don’t Stand So Close to Me" (about male HS teacher being pursued by young girl student and being tempted). The kids reacted with astonishment and some negativity to the theme but thought it was a catchy tune.

Times and culture change, often for the better.

[niyad]

27. I read both the highly-edited (i.e. Censored) original in the early/mid 60's, and then Heinlein's

complete manuscript as the 30th anniversary edition. More than a third had been censored out of the original publication.

[Hugin]

8. Grok is far older than Twitter.

"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", 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". 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 as diverse as polyamory (in particular the Church of All Worlds) and computer science."

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok

[question everything]

9. Thanks. I should have googled it but was not sure

And the question now is, in what context did Rachel use it..

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. It's a word science fiction writer Robert Heinlein invented for "to understand intuitively"

that got into dictionaries. Heinlein isn't to everyone's taste, of course; he is rather libertarian.

[PCIntern]

19. I always hated that word because

by far the biggest asshole in my high school used it all the time and was an insufferable prig. And an insufferable prick. His first name was Martin, and if by any chance you’re reading this, fuck you.

[Dave Starsky]

20. Heinlein wrote for 13-year-old boys.

Even when he was writing for adults.

[rsdsharp]

21. At one point in the 1930s Heinlein was a socialist.

He was heavily involved in Upton Sinclair’s EPIC campaign. His first novel, For Us the Living (unpublished until after his death) advocated a universal basis income.

Heinlein’s politics were really a reflection of his spouse’s. Second wife Leslyn was a socialist. Third wife Virginia was a libertarian.

[UpInArms]

10. I always knew that Rachael

Determined herself to be a fair witness

[procon]

11. That was a rare blast from the past.

She must be another fan, who else could recall - or even remember - that word after all this time?

[niyad]

24. Hey, I remember it, and use it.

[CozyMystery]

26. So do I!

I loved that book when I was in high school.

I have not re-read it in 50 years. I want to remember it fondly. The vast majority of books I liked back then are books I do not like now. So, I stopped trying to re-read them.

[niyad]

29. Jubal Harshaw remains one of my favourite fictional characters.

[Laurelin]

31. I don't know

I haven't even read the book (never much liked Heinlein) but all my (geeky, scifi- reading) friends in college used the word routinely. I still do. It's a useful word.

I assume I'm not unique.

[Coventina]

12. "I grok Spock"

[Gothmog]

14. Rachel has used the term before

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212539430
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211525923

[niyad]

28. I have heard her use it a number of times.

[TlalocW]

15. I just used that term in regards to talking about Kris Kobach

Apparently he's trying to get some funds from that We Build the Wall thing that he and Steve Bannon were part of, but its assets are currently frozen. I said, "I don't totally grok all the legalese, but safe to say, those court-ordered remedial law classes he had to take didn't stick."

TlalocW

[Liberal In Texas]

16. I've heard her say it before.

If she's a SF geek, I like her even better.

[nolabear]

18. Awww...Heinlein was such a great part of my adolescence.

Mind you, I grew up and he didn’t but I still have a huge soft spot for the old poop.

[Gothmog]

22. Rachel will be on Sunday night

Link to tweet

[jeffreyi]

25. A good word.

I didn't make it through the book, though. Back in the day.

[rsdsharp]

30. Imagine if you had read it as he originally wrote it.

He cut 60,000 words out of the first draft.

[Gothmog]

33. I was in line at a drive through and I heard Rachel used "grok" again