MED Magazine - Issue 29 - April 2005

New word of the month
by Kerry Maxwell

gronk out phrasal verb [I] informal /grk at/
1 If a machine or electrical device gronks out, it stops working.
2 If a person gronks out, they go to sleep.
gronked out adjective, informal /grkt at/

'Marvin gronks out and begins to snore lightly …'
(www.simegen.com, February 2005)

'The other choice you have is to create a site that other people find useful. Pick something you enjoy or know a lot about and create a page about it. For example: If you know a lot about repairing gronked out television sets, create a page on television repairs …'
(Sunday Observer, Sri Lanka, 21st July 2002)

It's the twenty-first century, and if you're feeling weary as you read this article, you may be tempted to say that you're going to go and gronk out for a while. If on the other hand you're having computer problems, you might legitimately be heard making exclamations like: My terminal just gronked out!

The world of neologisms is dominated by nouns and noun compounds, so the new use of an expression like gronk out is a comparatively rare event, notable because it represents a completely new phrasal verb. Gronk out is particularly unique because the verb element, to gronk, is a pure neologism, not formed from any pre-existing English words. It allegedly originates from a comic strip about a group of cavemen entitled B.C., produced by cartoonist Johnny Hart. In the cartoon, the word gronk referred to a dinosaur call, and it was subsequently adopted by the hacker community to refer to the noises emitted by ailing pieces of hardware. This then led to the coining of the phrasal verb gronk out, to talk about the situation of something (or someone!) ceasing to function.

Completely new words are occasionally formed when proper names cross over into general use. A recent example is the word Google, used as a verb to describe the activity of using the popular Internet search engine to obtain information on people or things. On the model of established phrasal verbs like find out, dig/hunt out, etc., this same word has in turn given us another new phrasal verb: to google something out as in, for example: I googled out a relevant website.

Another example of a new word which has found its way into the phrasal verb domain is the term phish which describes the activity of fraudulently obtaining personal information and credit card details etc. through fake websites. Based on the model of phrasal verbs fish out ('pull something out of a container') and fish for ('to try to make someone tell you something') we now see evidence of the use of both phish something out and phish for something, usually in the context of obtaining information via some kind of Internet or e-mail related deception.

These examples, of completely new phrasal verbs based on pure neologisms, are comparatively rare when we observe general trends in the development of phrasal verbs. The vast majority of 'new' phrasal verbs are either formed via creative combination of existing verbs and particles, or the use of existing verb particle combinations in new ways.

A classic example of the latter situation is the established phrasal verb bump someone off, which until recently has always been thought of as an informal euphemism for 'to kill someone'. If we were to examine written and spoken evidence of today's use of the combination bump off however, we would more than likely see examples like: There was an error message and I got bumped off the Net, or The system bumped me off after a few minutes. Increasingly it seems, this combination is being used to refer to the situation of the connection between a person's computer and the Internet being unexpectedly broken. The meaning of bump off has transferred from general language into the language of a specific domain. The reverse process sometimes also occurs. For example the phrasal verb double down has a very specific meaning in gambling. In the game of blackjack, to double down is to double the size of an initial bet before taking another card. In recent months this phrasal verb has begun to enter more general use, referring to any situation of taking increased risks, particularly with regard to investment opportunities, e.g.:

'We are doubling down in China because the potential for Internet commerce in that country is simply extraordinary.'
(Computerworld, 14th February 2005)

Creative combination of existing words is the main source of noun neologisms, and the same is true of the formation of new phrasal verbs. However, though often taking inspiration from existing combinations, new phrasal verbs do not generally feature core verbs like get, go and give, for which the vast majority of verb-particle combinations are already in extensive use in the language. The 'verb' element of new phrasal verbs is often based on words which we think of primarily as nouns, or even adjectives. Some recent examples include:

sex up something to change a piece of writing to make it seem more significant or interesting than it was originally, e.g.: He deliberately sexed up the report so that they would pay more attention to his ideas.
sexed-up adjective e.g.: It's just a sexed-up version of a familiar story.

bin someone/something off informal to discard someone or something, used especially in the context of removing someone from a job/position, or terminating a relationship, e.g.: My eldest daughter had a date with Robbie Williams and binned him off for being an idiot. They made him captain when Jones was binned off for missing training.

page out informal to daydream, e.g.: Can you repeat that? I paged out for a minute.
(There is also some evidence for the phrasal verb page in as an antonym.)

geek out informal to suddenly start speaking in technical language, e.g.: Just excuse me while I geek out for a couple of minutes.
geeked-out adjective equipped with a lot of electronic/computational devices, e.g.: I was sufficiently geeked-out for the trip, with a laptop, PDA and camera phone.

big something up informal
1 to praise or recommend something, to make something sound exciting, e.g.: I know I sound like I'm bigging it up, but it was a great film.
2 big it up to enjoy yourself in a social situation in a way that makes other people notice you, e.g.: The lads were really bigging it up at the local club.

vague something up informal to make something seem less clear or detailed, e.g.: I vagued up certain parts of the story.

New phrasal verbs and derived nouns and adjectives are often developed from the process of associating a specific meaning to a particle and applying it creatively in a range of combinations. For instance the particle out, as featured in phrasal verbs such as tire someone out and its derived form tired out, is now often associated with the idea of being exhausted, or having done something so much that you do not want to do it any more. We therefore see plenty of evidence for creative combinations such as barbecued/partied/conferenced out, as in I couldn't possibly eat another sausage, I'm all barbecued out. This kind of creative usage, though very common, is essentially ephemeral, a means of communication in a particular situation, and does not generally result in new phrasal verbs and derivations entering the dictionary.

The strong association between a particle and a particular meaning can however sometimes create the possibility of coining an antonym for an established phrasal verb. For instance, the phrasal verb dumb something down has for some time now been used as a disapproving way of saying 'to make something easier or simpler to understand'. More recently, there is evidence for use of the phrase dumb something up with the meaning 'to make something appear more complicated/intellectual'. Here, the meaning of the new phrasal verb hinges on a strong association of up as the opposite of down, despite the use of the word dumb ('stupid'). The same process led to the formation of the expression sex something down ('to make something appear less interesting or exciting') which followed quickly on the heels of the controversial new phrasal verb sex something up (see above) in 2003.

Some particles seem to feature in new combinations far more readily than others. The particle out is a particularly common example, as observed in examples originating from the hacker community such as gronk out and geek out, and in recent slang expressions such as bombed/zoned/zonked out, all meaning 'intoxicated on drink/drugs' (and presumably modelled on terms like spaced out). At the end of 2004, the UK media reported the addition of the expression thugged-out (from hip-hop slang, meaning 'tough-looking') to the Oxford English Dictionary.