"nerd" etymythology

Mon Jul 18 16:05:55 UTC 2011

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "nerd" etymythology
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There is an interesting webpage on the origin of the term nerd. All
> the citations that the author is aware of in the 1950s are listed.
>
> http://eldacur.com/~brons/NerdCorner/nerd.html
>
> There are very few citations in the 1950s. So here are some more. They
> are all dated after the 1951 Newsweek article, and some are not
> verified on paper.
>
> Here is an unverified GB match in Collier's magazine. The snippet does
> not show the relevant text, and I have not verified the information on
> paper. But it is an interesting lead, I think, because the date given
> is relatively early: 1952.
>
> Cite: circa 1952, Collier's: incorporating features of the American
> magazine (Google Books; Unverified)
>
> Raw OCR from Snippet view:
> Age Clothes. 9o get on the stick with these real fat, real eool,
> really craay elothes. 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-ple. ...
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=CaNCAQAAIAAJ&
>
>
> This is a reprint of the Newsweek article in the mass-circulation
> Reader's Digest.
> Cite: 1952 January, The Reader's Digest, Real George All The Way
> [Condensed from Newsweek article dated October 8, 1951], Page 57,
> Reader's Digest Association. (Verified on paper)
>
> 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. A Cadillac
> convertible is real cool or even shafty, and its driver, particularly
> if he be cat, or well dressed, is cool Jonah.
>
>
> Cite: 1954 February 9, Kentucky New Era, Teen-ager Language Is
> Puzzling To Some Adults by Vivian Brown, Associated Press, Page 6 [GNA
> Page 5], Hopkinsville, Kentucky. (Google News Archive)
>
> There were real wheels in the long gone with '23-skidoo' Daddy-o, but
> that stuff wails now. As a matter of fact, it's stoned.
>
> And the same goes for the nerds and oddballs who think "George" is
> real cool for "cool."
> ...
> A girl is a chick or a doll and a boy is a cat. Cats who lack grey
> matter are nerds or oddballs.
>
> There's no better way to identify yourself as a nerd than by saying
> something is "George." Cat, what you mean is "cool."
>
> http://goo.gl/4TkqT
>
>
> The AP article appears in this newspaper also.
> Cite: 1954 February 14, News And Courier, Denver Teenagers Interviewed
> For Slang And Styles, AP Newsfeature, Charleston, South Carolina.
> (Google News Archive)
>
> http://goo.gl/xJesG
>
>
> Cite: 1954 October 27, Boston Globe, "The Real Gone If You're Lukewarm
> and a Long Gone Nerd, Read This Nervous List", Page 15, Boston,
> Massachusetts. (ProQuest)
>
> When a teen age boy tells his father, "Lad, you're the leastest," it's
> time for the old man to get insulted.
>
> To find out why, you'll have to read today's assignment in the Real
> Gone Lexicon of modern jive talk. It's been compiled by William Morris
> for the Bell Syndicate.
>
> ...
> NERD--A square, one who is not up with the times.
>
>
> Cite: Circa 1955, Funny in a Way, Greenwich Book Publishers. (Google
> Books snippet; Not verified in paper)
>
> DETROIT
> "Drip and goon" are widely used terms for "low rating" a person. Today
> he is a "nerd" or a "scurve.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=ccDiAAAAMAAJ&q=nerd#search_anchor
>
> Garson
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 11:54 PM, Ben Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject:      "nerd" etymythology
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The English actor and comedian Simon Pegg has a new book out called _Nerd
> D=
> > o
> > Well_, and in interviews he explains the title as a play on what he
> claims
> > is the etymology of "nerd", from "ne'er-do-well".
> >
> > ---
> >
> http://www.maximumfun.org/sound-young-america/simon-pegg-actor-and-filmmake=
> > r-interview-sound-young-america
> > [starting around 2:40]
> > It ["nerd"] does come from the phrase "ne'er do well". I mean, that's
> where
> > the word is derived from. It was a shortening of that, which then became
> > "nehrd" [nE:d] and then "nerd" [n@:d], and then... you know, meaning
> someon=
> > e
> > on the fringes of society.
> > ---
> > http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/the-geek-will-out
> > Why call your book Nerd Do Well?
> > That=92s where the word =91Nerd=92 comes from. The word Nerd is a
> shortenin=
> > g of
> > Ne=92er Do Well.
> > ---
> >
> > I've heard many proposed etymologies for "nerd" ("knurd" as a reversal of
> > "drunk", "nurd" as a rhyming alteration of "turd", etc.), but this was a
> ne=
> > w
> > one on me. I see on Google Books that it appeared in a May 26, 1987 _PC
> > Magazine_ column by John C. Dvorak ("Origins of the Word 'Nerd'"). Dvorak
> > dismissed the theory, along with many others, in favor of an origin from
> Dr=
> > .
> > Seuss's _If I Ran the Zoo_. And John A. Barry seems to suggest that the
> > etymythology was his own in the 1991 book _Technobabble_:
> >
> > http://books.google.com/books?id=3DShGYef744mgC&pg=3DPA151
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> >
> > --=20
> > Ben Zimmer
> > http://benzimmer.com/
> >
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> >
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