Korean Job Discussion Forums

[deetah]

Several months ago, my co-worker and I were discussing what is a nerd and what is geek? Anyone have a definition of either? Would you define yourself as either?

[Guri Guy]

Here are the dictionary definitions of Geek and Nerd:

geek ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gk)
n. Slang

A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.
A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.


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[Perhaps alteration of dialectal geck, fool, from Low German gek, from Middle Low German.]
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geeky adj.
Our Living Language Our word geek is now chiefly associated with student and computer slang; one probably thinks first of a computer geek. In origin, however, it is one of the words American English borrowed from the vocabulary of the circus, which was a much more significant source of entertainment in the United States in the 19th and early 20th century than it is now. Large numbers of traveling circuses left a cultural legacy in various and sometimes unexpected ways. For example, Superman and other comic book superheroes owe much of their look to circus acrobats, who were similarly costumed in capes and tights. The circus sideshow is the source of the word geek, ��a performer who engaged in bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.�� We also owe the word ballyhoo to the circus; its ultimate origin is unknown, but in the late 1800s it referred to a flamboyant free musical performance conducted outside a circus with the goal of luring customers to buy tickets to the inside shows. Other words and expressions with circus origins include bandwagon (coined by P.T. Barnum in 1855) and Siamese twin.

geek

n 1: a carnival performer who does disgusting acts 2: a person with an unusual or odd personality [syn: eccentric, eccentric person, flake, oddball]


nerd also nurd ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n?d)
n. Slang
A foolish, inept, or unattractive person.
A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.


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[Perhaps after Nerd, a character in If I Ran the Zoo, by Theodor Seuss Geisel.]
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nerdy adj.
Word History: The word nerd, undefined but illustrated, first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo: ��And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!�� (The nerd is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.) Nerd next appears, with a gloss, in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail in a regular column entitled ��ABC for SQUARES��: ��Nerda square, any explanation needed?�� Many of the terms defined in this ��ABC�� are unmistakable Americanisms, such as hep, ick, and jazzy, as is the gloss ��square,�� the current meaning of nerd. The third appearance of nerd in print is back in the United States in 1970 in Current Slang: ��Nurd [sic], someone with objectionable habits or traits.... An uninteresting person, a ��dud.���� Authorities disagree on whether the two nerdsDr. Seuss's small creature and the teenage slang term in the Glasgow Sunday Mailare the same word. Some experts claim there is no semantic connection and the identity of the words is fortuitous. Others maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator of nerd and that the word nerd (��comically unpleasant creature��) was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers, had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class, a ��square.��

[nurd ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n?d)
n. Slang
Variant of nerd.

Main Entry: gearhead1
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: a person who is extremely interested and knowledgeable about computers, electronics, technology, and gadgets; also called nerd, geek
Usage: derogatory slang



nerd

n : an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or studying excessively [syn: swot, grind, wonk, dweeb]


nerd

n. 1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone
with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary
social rituals. 2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious
ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really
important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by
trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare the two senses of
computer geek.

The word itself appears to derive from the lines "And then, just to
show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo / And Bring Back an It-Kutch, a Preep
and a Proo, / A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!" in the
Dr. Seuss book "If I Ran the Zoo" (1950). (The spellings `nurd' and
`gnurd' also used to be current at MIT.) How it developed its
mainstream meaning is unclear, but sense 1 seems to have entered
mass culture in the early 1970s (there are reports that in the
mid-1960s it meant roughly "annoying misfit" without the connotation
of intelligence).

An IEEE Spectrum article (4/95, page 16) once derived `nerd' in its
variant form `knurd' from the word `drunk' backwards, but this
bears all the hallmarks of a bogus folk etymology.

Hackers developed sense 2 in self-defense perhaps ten years later,
and some actually wear "Nerd Pride" buttons, only half as a joke.
At MIT one can find not only buttons but (what else?) pocket
protectors bearing the slogan and the MIT seal.

[peemil]

My GF says I'm a gubber...

[superhal]

i tell students that in today's society, both mean about the same thing: a person without social skills. but, i would say that a "nerd" does better in school.

[hamlet12]

Im not sure who has more time on thier hands here, the guy whos contemplating the question enough to ask, or the guy who answered it with every single definition there could possibly be.

Whie youre at it, look up dweeb and spazz.

[Atkinson]

[John Henry]

I'm more of a dork.

[jajdude]

Poor Bill Gates.

[Guri Guy]