This isn’t Kansas anymore, Toto, and it’s also not mid-twentieth-century America, a time and place that had the Bill Gateses and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world pegged as the walking, talking intersections of social awkwardness, poor fashion sense, highfalutin intelligence, and a strange technophilia.
The attitude towards GNDs (geeks, nerds and dorks) has changed tremendously, as have the definitions attached to the terms. The formerly caustic connotations carried by these words have been neutralized, which also means their meanings have converged and the labels themselves seem more interchangeable.
But do geek, nerd, and dork really mean the same thing these days? We decided to get to the bottom of it by undertaking a good, ol’ etymology investigation (we’re more free to be word nerds than ever, after all). Here’s what we dug up!
From Circus Freak to Geek
Derived from geck, a fourteenth-century Germanic term for court jester and later a word that came to mean “a person uncultivated; a dupe,” geek first cropped up in the United States in the early twentieth century as carnie slang.
If you want to get specific, it was used to refer to unskilled performers whose acts were shocking and repulsive. Some geeks would even bite the heads off living animals, like chickens or snakes. In short, geeks were circus freaks, and they were immortalized as such in William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel Nightmare Alley.
Over time, the word became synonymous with those who were outsiders, oddballs, and eccentrics. Until the 1950s. That, according to a BBC interview with Merriam-Webster lexicographer Kory Stamper, is when the definition shifted to mean “a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked.”
Why is not one hundred percent clear; though, many experts have suggested that it has something to do with the rampant anti-intellectualism evident in America during that time period as a result of McCarthyism. This sentiment and the idea of geeks as hated brainiacs pervaded during the ’60s—only to truly evolve after the computer boom of the ’70s and ’80s.
Once PCs (personal computers) became the talk of the town, so did the word geek as a derisive term for someone who had a deep knowledge and passion for computers and related technology.
From this point, you likely know the ending. As digital culture, social networks, and technological innovation on the whole gained momentum, geeks got cooler (or the mainstream got geekier).
After all, it became clear that people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, who have often been identified as geeks, were not unskilled freaks as much as powerful, rich, world-changing inventors.
Naturally, it was only right that the semantics attached to geek shift again. Nowadays, in a world where 4-year-olds can film themselves on iPhones and grandparents use the word ‘meme,’ a tech-infused life is not the exception; it’s the norm. And accordingly, this element is no longer a prerequisite for geekdom.
So, today, anyone’s who’s a knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast is a geek, and anyone who becomes extremely excited or enthusiastic about a subject, typically one of specialist or minority interest, is geeking out.
The Revenge of the Word Nerd
If you know that “a person’s a person, no matter how small,” can imagine nothing greater than a breakfast of green eggs and ham, and would cherish the opportunity to give Cindy Lou Who (who’s no more than two) a great big hug, then you may also know where the first credible evidence of the word nerd appeared.
Yep, it’s largely accepted that the term originally popped up in Dr. Seuss’s 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo, in which Gerald McGrew imagines the incredible, exotic creatures that would populate his own extraordinary animal menagerie.
“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 true Dr. Seuss form, the term comes with an accompanying illustration that depicts a grumpy, anxious, bizarrely hairy, black-shirted character.
Nerd
Unfortunately, few of the traits attributed to the famous author’s creation aligned with a 1951 Newsweek article’s findings about the way the word nerd was being used at the time.
According to the piece, which rounded up slang used by teenagers across the nation, “In Detroit, someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd, or in a less severe case, a scurve.”
Here, nerd means an indecisive, weak, old-fashioned, uncool person—a definition that largely prevailed for the twenty-five years or so that followed.
What happened next?
Happy Days, Saturday Night Live, and then Revenge of the Nerds. The sitcom, sketch comedy show, and famous 1984 movie all appropriated nerd for their own use, along the way shaping public perception of the term.
What remained after the fact was a person who was physically immature, cowed by parental authority, sexually unsuccessful, socially awkward, highly intelligent, and technologically adept. Not necessarily an equal balance, but at least a mix of good qualities and bad.
Similar to the way in which the term geek was redefined after the PC became ubiquitous, nerds inherited some good fortune when the technological tide turned.
Unlike its counterpart though, nerd was never linked so explicitly to technology, which is why many experts believe it still remains the more derogatory of the two expressions.
As a result, these days a nerd is still thought of as a socially awkward person who has an IQ higher than their weight in pounds. The difference is it’s more of an endearing title now—not a derisive one.
Dork Does Not Mean Whale Penis
The origin of dork is more shrouded in mystery than geek or nerd, but many etymologists believe the term was born from the seventeenth-century Scottish pronunciation of the word dirk, which is a long thrusting dagger.
After that point, things get a bit hazy. Dork has been traced to a variety of sources, including student slang, a 1960s poem where it appears as a synonym for penis (an extension of a dirk’s penetrating motion?), and beyond.
Regardless of which is true, dorks of the mid-twentieth century didn’t share the high intelligence and technological interest and skills of geeks and nerds. Quite the contrary, they were thought of as stupid and foolish.
Dorks also don’t have anything to do with whales, especially their penises. One quick Google search will reveal how widespread this urban legend is, but nonetheless, it still remains more myth than meaning.
What is true is that as the years have gone by, teenage slang has shifted dorks into the geek/nerd grouping based on a shared idea of social awkwardness. Likewise, the acerbic nature of its original definition has been somewhat neutralized, and now dork refers more to someone who’s a bit of a silly social misfit and who doesn’t really care what others think.
How do you identify? Tell us whether you’re a geek, nerd, or dork and why in the comment section below or via our Facebook or Twitter feeds.
Written by: Stephanie Katz is a San Francisco–based writer who, contrary to the way it may seem, won’t correct your grammar over beers, coffees or any other normal life interaction. She tells stories about health, history, travel and more and can be contacted via email at stekatz@gmail.com.
*http://www.grammarly.com/blog/2015/word-war-the-difference-in-meaning-and-usage-of-geek-nerd-and-dork/?lf&utm_campaign=GeeknessDay_15&utm_source=Facebook_org&utm_medium=content&utm_content=hyperlink
