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

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:46:39 -0500, Michael McKernan
<mckernan at LOCALNET.COM> wrote:

>Good to see nerd/nurd appear in this thread.  I almost included it as a
>'whin' analog in my geek/dork post (and it actually appeared in the later
>text of the online ad which prompted my post).
>
>But whadabout dork?
>
>As I see/hear it, dork matches geek a lot more closely than nerd does, in
>all the non-semantic aspects of synonymy.  Then again, nobody else seems to
>be very interested in comparing geek/dork (nerd) to gorse/furze (whin).

I would say that in current usage, "geek" aligns with "nerd", not "dork".
"Dork" is invariably pejorative, while both "geek" and "nerd" have been
subject to melioration as the "techie" sense of both terms has become more
prominent.  "Nerd" was first to undergo ironic melioration, no doubt
inspired by the 1986 movie _Revenge of the Nerds_ (an expression
subsequently applied to the success of Bill Gates et al.)  "Geek" has
followed the meliorative path of "nerd"-- witness the article in the
latest _Time Magazine_ on the consumer-electronics retailer Best Buy:

http://www.time.com/time/insidebiz/article/0,9171,1034713,00.html

Part of Best Buy's recent success has been attributed to their deployment
of "the Geek Squad", an army of knowledgeable techies who work as "agents"
assisting befuddled customers.

See also this 2003 _USA Today_ article on "geek chic":

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-10-22-geek-chic_x.htm


--Ben Zimmer