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It
appears that I've made it through the 24 years of my life without having encountered the word gorp. You can imagine my
surprise when, on a recent car trip, my girlfriend referred to the bag of peanuts, raisins and chocolate chips that I
packed, asking "Where's the gorp?" Gorp came up in conversation again the other day, so I decided to do a
little research. The origins of the word are cloudy at best. According to a Wikipedia entry, gorp may be a "backronym," an acronym created to match
the letters of a word that already exists, standing for Good Old Raisins and Peanuts or Granola Oats Raisins and
Peanuts. I'm skeptical of the latter because granola generally contains oats anyway, so that would be redundant.
Apparently gorp is also known as scroggin in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Iraq. Supposedly, this may also be an
acronym.[Photo: Wikipedia] World Wide Words says that scroggin may be based on "Sultanas, Currants, Raisins, Orange (peel), Ginger and Nuts." A 1913 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary says that gorp is a verb meaning "to eat greedily." The World Wide Words article also suggests that it may be derived from a variation on the word gawk, which conjures images of open mouths. Usually good for a boost of energy, blends of nuts and raisins are also sometimes called "student food," again according to the Wikipedia entry on gorp. It goes on to say that the term student food is derived from the German studentenfutter. Also, Gorp is apparently the name of a neighborhood in the village of Hilvarenbeek in the Netherlands.
I know this much: I've been perfectly happy to call gorp trail mix thus far and I think I'll continue to do so. Maybe I should start calling it scroggin, but I fear that a word like that must have other, far worse connotations.
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4-18-2006 @6:27PM Andrew said... In my part of the UK I have never heard of gorp or scroggin; although the latter sounds like a West Country type word to me...
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4-18-2006 @11:48PM Christopher Jachmich said... If you've ever been on a hiking/camping trip, you've probably heard of gorp. But scroggin? That's a seriously awesome name. I think I'm gonna use that from now on.
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4-19-2006 @3:06PM Sarah said... Gorp is still in the OED, but now it is listed as the snack food. The etymology is listed as both a reference to the earlier slang term meaning "to eat greedily" and also to the verb "gawp." The first print reference listed in OED is 1972 in National Geographic (May issue).
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4-19-2006 @8:24PM Misha Kim Hill said... I've always called it just "trail mix," but I've heard it called Gorp. I was under the impression that Gorp was a specific brand but that many people used it generically.
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4-20-2006 @11:19AM Charles said... Check http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gorp for a slightly different spin on the term.
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7-07-2006 @6:52PM Matthew said... Here in New Zealand I grew up with the word scroggin -- and thought "gorp" was a ridiculous word when I first heard it. I guess they're probably equally ridiculour. However "trail mix" to me evokes images of inexperienced hikers...I wonder why.
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