A few days ago, we had to restore a friend’s computer back to where it was so she could play a particular game that she liked. The reason this was necessary, was because someone had re-configured the screen to make it “easier” for her. After we were finished, we told her to be careful when “nerds” offered to help — they often don’t think like other people.
You may have guessed — this all got me to thinking about the term ‘nerd.” I seem to remember reading somewhere that Dr. Seuss came up with the word. That made some sense to me, because he used lots of kind of made-up words in his writings. I did some checking and in his book If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, I found the word….
….. And then, just show them, I’ll sail to ka-troo
And bring back an It-kutch, a Preep and a Proo,
A Nerkie, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too! …..
Actually, being a big fan of Dr. Seuss, I should have just stopped there and given him all the credit, but my extensive research instinct urged me to go further.
In 1951, Newsweek published an article about the latest slang that included the word nerd. The article noted that “In Detroit, someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd, or in less severe cases, a scurve.”
Like Dr. Seuss needs more controversy, but there are two sides — one side is convinced that nerd originated with Dr. Seuss and the other says the good Doctor didn’t really make it up and it originated before the publication of his book.
Another name mentioned as a possible source of the word is Mortimer Snerd — Edgar Bergan’s ventriloquist’s dummy modeled on a country bumpkin. The thought is that Snerd reminded radio listeners of a “drip” or someone looked upon as annoyingly dull. Edgar Bergan’s radio show was popular in the late 1930s through the 1950s and some think that Dr. Seuss had Snerd in mind when he wrote the rhyme — of course, there is no proof of that.
Another idea is that nerd developed in colleges from knurd — a coinage formed by spelling drunk backwards. The implication is that a “knurd” would rather study than party.
Gradually, the “socially inept but brainy” connotation became associated with the term. By the 1980s, the image of the nerd as someone who has a knack for computers and sports a “nerd pack” (a plastic penholder) in his shirt pocket and unsightly glasses came into being.
Even though, the subject of this entry is “nerd,” there is a a closely associated term, “geek.” For the sake of completeness, I should probably touch on that….
The term originally was used to describe sideshow freaks in the circus. It was typically attributed to those circus performers who were known for doing crazy things like biting off the heads of various small live animals or eating live insects and things like that.These performances were often called “geek shows.” The word itself, “geek,” came from the word “geck,” which was originally a Low German word which meant someone who is a “fool/freak/simpleton.”
Today, being labeled a nerd is something often worn with pride. It’s a word that implies that a person possesses a depth of knowledge in a particular area, whether it’s in science, books, words, gaming, or whatever. Today a nerd is brainy and a bit geeky, but that’s pretty cool.
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