Wednesday 22 June 2016

Grukking

Sometime later I was awakened by loud grukking. The sound resembled off-key music made by a sharp-toothed orangutan blowing spit through a twisted copper pipe. In other words, indescribable unless you hear it yourself.
-copied from here.

I copied this passage because it explains a word used by Poul Anderson:

"This was a chilly fall day. Wind boomed across stubblefields and the grey heath beyond them. Clouds hastened through an ice-pale sky where a flight of storks was outward bound, high and high above. Close down, some ravens flapped black and grukking. Off on one side lifted a wood, leaves ablaze in red, russet, brass, bronze, ripped loose and whirled away by the blast. Afar northward, a steel glimmer bespoke the sea." (Hrolf Kraki's Saga, p. 124)

Only three senses here but a vivid descriptive passage nevertheless.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I don't remember "grukking" from the other times I read HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA, but I can see it's an odd and interesting word!

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
Google asked whether I meant "Grokking."
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Ha, ha!!! That's an interesting word too! One coined by Robert Heinlein in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. Basically, "grokking" means to know or understand something. It's an example of a word passing over from SF into general use.

Sean