"nerd" etymythology

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>
> I have located the 1952 cartoon in Collier's magazine that uses the
> word nerd and numerous other slang terms. As Ben noted the vocabulary
> items apparently were based on the October 1951 Newsweek article. I
> also located the reprint of the cartoon in Collier's that appeared
> with a news item about the reaction to the cartoon.
>
> Cite: 1952 February 2, Collier's, [free standing cartoon by John
> Norment surrounded by an unrelated article with the page title "But
> Jigs and Maggie Are in Love"], Page 39, Crowell-Collier Pub. Co.
> (Verified on paper)
>
> [Cartoon by John Norment depicts a radio announcer with three pages of
> typescript speaking into a microphone labeled with the letters B A C.
> Behind the announcer is another figure in the control booth. The
> caption is given below.]
>
> "You'll get a large charge from Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes. So get on
> the stick with these real fat, real cool, really crazy clothes. Don't
> be a Party-Pooper or a nerd. Yes, everybody is bashing ears about
> Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes. They're Frampton. They're pash-pie.
> They're MOST! Everybody from Jelly-tots to Cool Jonahs gets a big
> tickle from Hoffman's threads. These suits are really made in the
> shade, and when your Dolly, or double bubble, sees you wearing a
> Hoffman she'll give you an approving Mother Higby and say, 'That has
> it !'. So don't get squishy and be a schnookle. The geetafrate is
> reasonable and we'll make it Chili for you. Remember, don't be an odd
> ball. The name is Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes"
[...]

Thanks to Garson for tracking this down. For anyone keeping score,
here are the earliest known examples of "nerd" (disregarding Dr.
Seuss's use of the word in "If I Ran the Zoo," which appeared in
shortened form in _Redbook_ in July 1950 before being published in
book form later that year). Items in _The Age_, _Reader's Digest_, and
_Collier's_ all draw their teen slang terms directly from _Newsweek_,
while the _Herald-Press_ article is a bit more wide-ranging:

---
1951 _Newsweek_ 8 Oct. 28 In Detroit, someone who once would be called
a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd, or in a less severe
case, a scurve.

1951 _The Age_ (Melbourne, Australia) 11 Oct. 4 ("U.S. Teen-agers Talk
a 'Cool, Shafty' Language") Teenagers in New York, Chicago, New
Orleans and Los Angeles who resort to such passe expressions are mere
peasants or "nerds.”... Such lowly "nerds" in other cities may on
occasion be hailed by acquaintances, with, "Hey, nosebleed."
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=k8dVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IcQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5372,4309418

1952 _Reader’s Digest_ Jan. 57 In Detroit, someone who once would have
been called a drip or a square is now a nerd, or in a less severe case
a scurve.

1952 _Collier’s_ 2 Feb. 39 (cartoon by John Norment, featuring radio
DJ reading a fictitious ad for "Hoffman's Teen-Age Clothes") Don't be
a party-pooper or a nerd.

1952 _Herald-Press_ (St. Joseph, Mich.) 23 June 14 (“To 'Clue Ya' To
Be 'George' And Not A 'Nerd' Or 'Scurve'”) If the patois throws you,
you're definitely not in the know, because anyone who is not a nerd
(drip) knows that the bug is the family car.
---

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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