As Phillip's post/dictionary description indicates, the colloquial nerd
continues to mean smart, knowledgeable, and intelligent, but without the
pejorative connotation. I personally saw the expression change with the
internet culture of the San Francisco Bay Area several years ago, especially
with the marketability of computer programmers who have a math and science
bent. More recently it seems to have lost it's science/math association and
is used as a designation for anyone who is passionate about something
cerebral. The term is gender neutral and equally applied to both men and
women.
My hunch is that government imposed educational standards (let's catch up
with Japan/Germany) and stay-in-school campaigns is partially to blame for
this phenomenon. My son starts the 8th grade this year, but I wasn't able to
help him with his math homework last year. He completed Algebra II in the
7th grade. His math skills are considered "average" for his grade level. He
used to think it was fun to join me at the beach at dawn and figure pinhole
exposures for me by longhand using a common algebraic formula-classic nerd!
San Francisco has hundreds of 1-2 week day camps during the summer and both
my kids start picking their camps months before summer hits. The science
camps outnumber the sports camps by 3-to-1. My daughter (10 years old) took
Basic Physics this summer in anticipation of taking the highly popular
Advanced Physics camp next summer.
Mark
On Fri, 26 Aug 2005, D. Mark Andrews wrote:
> Perhaps "nut" is an insult where you reside, but in California we are
> all nuts and take great pride in it. We also like nerd.
>
That's extremely interesting Mark -- the part about Nerd. What would you
say it means now? (Offlist, if you prefer.) Last week I photographed a
fellow with "NERD" in giant letters on his T-shirt. He seemed quite proud
of it. I asked him where he got the shirt and he said his girlfriend gave
it to him because, "I'm always reading and writing."
The last I heard, "Nerd" meant hopeless, um, Dweeb? Creep? Schlemiel?
Now it seems to have crept, and means, what?.... "wonk"? "egghead"?
Whatever, thanks for the heads up.
J.
Received on Sat Aug 27 08:58:02 2005
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