[Ads-l] Gnerd variant of nerd, gnurd

[Jonathan Lighter]

The miracle of robotics sent these comments to Grant instead of to the
wider world as I intended:

I had a neighbor in grad school in 1975 who used not the spelling (so far
as I know) but the pronunciation "guh 'nerd."

He was from Oshkosh.

JL

On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 8:29 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> He was from Oshkosh.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 8:29 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I had a neighbor in grad school in 1975 who used not the spelling (so far
>> as I know) but the pronunciation "guh 'nerd."
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 2:53 PM Grant Barrett <grantbarrett at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> A listener to the radio show mentioned that in his high school in 1967,
>>> they used the spelling "gnerd" for what is usually spelled "nerd" these
>>> days.
>>>
>>> Indeed, a quick periodical search does turn up a few instances. I do not
>>> find that spelling recorded in any of the everyday or slang reference
>>> works. It is compelling that the citations — including my listener's —
>>> are
>>> date-clustered; it suggests some related connection. A more thorough and
>>> complete search may find unclustered others, however.
>>>
>>> 1961 Oct. 7 (Wilmington DE) News Journal p. 14: Professor Brubaker
>>> himself
>>> would be called a pale one (an intellectual) or a gnerd (what he probably
>>> called "a queer duck" when he was a student).
>>>
>>> 1967 Aberjona (Winchester Public High School, Winchester MA) p. 66: [T]he
>>> Student Council was extremely active this year [...] running the annual
>>> Gnerd Dance[...].
>>>
>>> 1967 Jan. 8 (Omaha NE) Sunday World-Herald Magazine p. 30: [...][R]ipping
>>> the "simpering" scoutmaster-hero as an "unmitigated gnerd" and concluding
>>> that the entire film is "likely to restore public faith in juvenile
>>> delinquency."
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Grant Barrett
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org