Norwegian still translates grep as "grip"/"grab". I always thought of grepping as reaching in with a hand into the text and grabbing lines. That association is close at hand (insert lame chuckle) for German and English speakers too.

In English that association is going to depend a lot on one's accent; until now I've never associated grep-ing with anything other than using grep! (But, equally, that might just be a me thing.)

It doesn’t sound anything like grip in my accent but for some reason the association has always been there for me. Grabbing or ripping parts from the file.

What about groping? Groping around for text.

So, at the extrem opposite of the esoteric "general regular expression print" that grep stands for with few ever knowing it?

s/general/global