gripenet n.
[IBM] A wry (and thoroughly unofficial) name for IBM's
internal VNET system, deriving from its common use by IBMers to
voice pointed criticism of IBM management that would be taboo in
more formal channels.
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gritch /grich/
[MIT] 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a glitch). 2. vi. To complain. Often
verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch". 3. A synonym for glitch (as verb or noun).
Interestingly, this word seems to have a separate history from
glitch, with which it is often
confused. Back in the early 1960s, when `glitch' was strictly a
hardware-tech's term of art, the Burton House dorm at M.I.T.
maintained a "Gritch Book", a blank volume, into which the
residents hand-wrote complaints, suggestions, and witticisms.
Previous years' volumes of this tradition were maintained, dating
back to antiquity. The word "gritch" was described as a
portmanteau of "gripe" and "bitch". Thus, sense 3 above is at
least historically incorrect.
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grok /grok/, var. /grohk/ vt.
[from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert A.
Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally `to drink'
and metaphorically `to be one with'] The emphatic form is `grok
in fullness'. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense.
Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. Contrast zen, which is similar supernal understanding
experienced as a single brief flash. See also glark. 2. Used of programs, may connote merely
sufficient understanding. "Almost all C compilers grok the
void type these days."