On 2015-03-10 21:19, Dan Asimov wrote:
I first heard the word "nerd" my freshman year at MIT, and was told it was spelled "gnurd".
When I heard the word at MIT it was already popular from (at least) "Happy Days". There's a web-site with more on the origins of nerd/nurd/gnurd at http://www.eldacur.com/~brons/NerdCorner/nerd.html Wikipedia also has etymological conjectures. But it seems to date from the 50's. It is hard to tell from these sources when "nerd" evolved from simply meaning "square", "unhip" or "dorky" to having the connotations we (well, some of us) take pride in. If we believe these sources, then an MIT origin of the latter meaning is possible, but seems very unlikely for the original source of "nerd" as uncool.
Did it actually originate at MIT? 'Cause I never heard it anywhere else for quite a few years.
--Dan
On Mar 10, 2015, at 6:07 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
Every real nerd knows . . .
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