Wuss & others

[Fred Shapiro]

On Thu, 3 Feb 2000, Anne Lambert wrote:

> And what's the origin of "nerd"

Dr. Seuss's _If I Ran the Zoo_ (1950) has a character called the Nerd, so
some have posited this as the source of the word.  Merriam-Webster's
files, however, have a 1951 citation, I think from _Time_, that may not
have anything to do with Seuss.


Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2