Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)

[Jonathan Lighter]

A careful consideration of all the "geek" evidence suggests that there was probably no single moment when it came to cover overly intellectual types. tThe word had been in use for decades here and there with "weirdo" being one connotation.  IIRC, the early DN cite came from a college campus.

But the word's widespread current popularity surely dates from the late '70s and early '80s.

JL
Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)
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Bill Mullins:
>When did geek evolve from the guy who eats dead chickens at the carnival
>to the guy who knows how to set the clock on the VCR?

Larry Horn:
>when the carnival sideshows were phased out and those guys had to
>undergo job retraining?

Jonathan Lighter:
>The only retraining needed was to quit biting the heads off chickens.
>
>Otherwise, see HDAS.

The first HDAS cite for "geek" in the nerdy sense ('an unsociable or
overdiligent student') is from Edith Folb's _Runnin' Down Some Lines: The
Language and Culture of Black Teenagers_ (1980). The OED3 draft entry
antedates this with a 1957 cite from Jack Kerouac's letters:

-----
1957 J. KEROUAC Let. 1 Oct. in Sel. Lett. 1957-69 (1999) 66 Unbelievable
number of events almost impossible to remember, including..Brooklyn
College wanted me to lecture to eager students and big geek questions to
answer.
-----

I'm not quite sure what Kerouac meant by "big geek questions"... In any
case, the use of "geek" in the collegiate context didn't take off until
the mid-'70s. Here's a 1976 cite I found in the Harvard Crimson online
archive:

-----
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=105171
Harvard Crimson, August 10, 1976
Ever wondered what was on the other side of Central Square besides the MIT
geeks with pocket computers and the NECCO factory?
-----

Fred Shapiro noted recently that "geek" was not much used at MIT in the
'70s, so perhaps it was something of an exonym, applied by Harvard
students to MIT students. I was only able to find one example from the
'70s in the online archive of MIT's paper, The Tech, with its hit-or-miss
OCR -- and that's for a letter to the editor reprinted from *Dartmouth's*
paper:

-----
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_098/TECH_V098_S0514_P001.pdf
The Tech (MIT), Nov. 14, 1978, p. 1, col. 1
To the Editor:
I would just like to comment on the present epidemic of geekishness which
is pervading the ranks of freshmen here at the college. I should correct
myself and say that this rare disease seems to have been an
integral aspect of the class of '81 ever since it set foot in this
once geek-free environment.
To document my accusation I cite the incredibly weak showing in their
first bonfire building, and now their even weaker show in. their second
attempt.
Where is all their spirit? Most likely it's to be found in the
stacks, or Kiewit [Computation Center), or the '02 room perhaps. I just
don't know what to make of it all.
I challenge these geeks to show a little spirit and produce an 81 tier
bonfire by Friday night. It would also be nice to see a few kegs and some
spirit around their awaited creation each night. Until then I rest my
case.
Jeff Boylan '79
The Dartmouth
-----

"Geek" appeared as a synonym for "nurd" in National Lampoon's 1977 poster
"Are You a Nurd?" -- see Barry Popik's post:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0002A&L=ads-l&P=R3030

Also, Barnhart and Metcalf gave "geek" as their word of the year for 1978
in _America in So Many Words_, though I don't know what that was based on.


--Ben Zimmer


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