Editing Granfalloon (section)

{{Short description|Concept in Kurt Vonnegut's Bokononism}}
{{about|some intentionally cryptic concepts|the heraldic and military flags|gonfalon}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2014}}

A '''granfalloon''', in the fictional religion of [[Bokononism]] (created by [[Kurt Vonnegut]] in his 1963 novel ''[[Cat's Cradle]]''), is defined as a "false [[Bokononism|karass]]". That is, it is a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is meaningless.

As quoted in ''And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life'' (2011) by [[Charles J. Shields]], Vonnegut writes in his introduction to his book ''[[Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons]]'' (1974) that a "granfalloon is a proud and meaningless collection of human beings"; Shields also comments that in the same book, Vonnegut later cites the [[demonym]] of '[[Hoosier]]s' as "one of [Vonnegut's] favorite examples" of what the term embodies. Another example of a granfalloon given in ''Cat's Cradle'' is 'alumni of [[Cornell University]]'. Kurt Vonnegut himself was born in [[Indiana]] and attended Cornell University.