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

Fri Mar 11 16:59:14 UTC 2005

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:15:02 -0500, Paul Johnston
<paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU> wrote:

>I can't remember what the term was for what we call a nerd today.  The
>engineers we shared a dorm with (who you could tell by their crew cuts,
>slide rules and white socks) were simply "engines".  The only term that
>sounds like my old vocab was "swot", and that comes from my U. of Edinburgh
>graduate school days later on.  Things like "grade grubber" were around, but
>that's not quite the same thing.

How about "grind"?  Or "wonk"?  Or "weenie"?

--Ben Zimmer