Tourist - annoying visitor, who disrupts the lives of
residents.
One theory on the origin of this wordis from the name of the famous Swiss clown, Grock, famous in the 60's. A resident of Torquay was said to have remarked that visitors resembled grockles, little Grocks, because of their boorishness and clownish behaviour.
The word in fact
originated from a strip cartoon in the children's comic Dandy entitled 'Danny and his Grockle'. (The grockle was a magical dragon-like creature.) A
local man had
used the term as a nickname for a small elderly lady who was in Torquay one season. The term then became generalized as a term for summer visitors.
The term became popularized because of its use by the characters in the film The System (1962), which is set in the Devon resort of Torquay during the tourist season.
