Definitions
Wiktionary
- n. A group of two or more people who imagine or are manipulated to believe they share a connection based on some circumstance of little or no real significance.
Examples
“Re: [jennifer rose] "A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings.”
“The karass is that group of friends from college who have helped one another's careers in a hundred subtle ways over the years; the granfalloon is the marketing department at your firm, where everyone has a meticulously defined place on the org chart but nothing ever gets done.”
“The social cohesion promoted by paying taxes to and receiving benefit checks from the same government agency as millions of other strangers is spurious, however — an example of the "granfalloon," Kurt Vonnegut's term for”
“A more serious theme in "Cat's Cradle" was its condemnation of the "granfalloon," a term Vonnegut invented.”
“A granfalloon is supposedly one of the many groupings that human beings compulsively create.”
“At first I thought it was a version of the granfalloon, the term Kurt Vonnegut invented to describe a striking but meaningless encounter: my brother-in-law, Jim Rasenberger and I both have books coming out within two weeks of each other.”
The Huffington Post: Eugene Linden: The Bay of Pigs: Disaster and Triumph
“Hazel's obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false karass, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done, a textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon.”
“It makes you a member of Hazel's karass, but don't worry, because you're probably part of the Althouse granfalloon.”
“If you wish to study a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon.”
“Another, widely used in selling many types of product, is to foster the idea that consumers belong to an elite in-group, a granfalloon (a term coined by Kurt Vonnegut for "a proud and meaningless association of human beings" based on a shared characteristic).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘granfalloon’.
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Vonnegutian Nuggets of Wisdom
I am entirely obsessed with works by Kurt Vonnegut.
Therefore I pledge myself to find every word he created, redefined, or otherwise revolutionized, particularly in Cat's Cradle.
foma, boko-maru, sin-wat, pissant, granfalloon, wampeter, karass, duprass, wrang-wrang, vin-dit, duffle, stuppa and 4 more...
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Literary Coinage
Wonderful words or phrases authors have invented
jabberwock, thumbfumble, zippicamiknicks, gryphoemia, ansible, gloomth, grok, mimsy, nymphet, smee, runcible spoon, centrifugal bumbl... and 40 more...
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bkerr's Words
wyrd, absinthe, homunculus, zorkmid, informon, decider, diachronic, frak, hwæt, feldercarb, yawp, dogfooding and 540 more...
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-oons (once of more than one syllable)
Originally this list was to contain multisyllabic words that end in "oon," but as you can see from the comments, all hell broke loose.
doubloon, poltroon, spittoon, patroon, dragoon, bassoon, platoon, typhoon, rangoon, maroon, pontoon, monsoon and 96 more...
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Malachi_Constant's Words
triumverate, pandemic, parsnip, delineate, zamboni, parka, laser, swoop, malevolent, benevolent, fracas, tipsy and 372 more...
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Review
Words to study and become more familiar with.
phatic, tontine, backronym, polyptoton, fissiparous, deus ex machina, orrery, prolly, mad props, snog, oubliette, copyleft and 101 more...
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Words of Whimsy & Grace
abecedary, addendum, ampersand, anachronism, avuncular, balderdash, barnacle, befuddle, behemoth, bejeebers, blabbermouth, blatherskite and 465 more...
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akmed13's Words
time, spaceship, quantum mechanics, time traveller, bezonkers, strakh, path integrals, gorbfest, amphigory, amber, bicycle, amphisbaena and 358 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Bokonon
karass, kan-kan, sinookas, wampeter, busy, vindit, wrang-wrang, duprass, granfalloon, hy-u-o-ook-ku, boko-maru, zah-mah-ki-bo and 7 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for granfalloon.
whichbe Any large bureaucratic figment of people's imagination. May 12, 2008
seanahan It is a sad day for us all. Apr 12, 2007
freshelectrons For Kurt Vonnegut, heir of Mark Twain, inspiration of a mad generation, bon voyage... You pushed the envelope of my irreverence. Thank you. Apr 12, 2007
seanahan "A false karass" - Cat's Cradle
The example given is Hoosiers, people from Indiana. Dec 2, 2006