The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
glark
/glark/, vt.
To figure something out from context. ?The System III manuals are pretty
poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context.? Interestingly,
the word was originally ?glork?; the context was ?This gubblick contains
many nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be
glorked [sic] from context? (David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in
his Metamagical Themas column in the January 1981 Scientific American). It
is conjectured that hacker usage mutated the verb to ?glark? because glork
was already an established jargon term (some hackers do report using the
original term). Compare grok, zen.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
glark
/glark/ To figure something out from context. "The System III
manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the
meaning from context." Interestingly, the word was originally
"glork"; the context was "This gubblick contains many
nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp
can be glorked [sic] from context" (David Moser, quoted by
Douglas Hofstadter in his "Metamagical Themas" column in the
January 1981 "Scientific American"). It is conjectured that
hackish usage mutated the verb to "glark" because glork was
already an established jargon term.
Compare grok, zen.
[Jargon File]