| kellychaos |
Quote:
nerd also nurd n. Slang.
1. A person regarded as stupid, inept, or unattractive.
2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
[Perhaps after Nerd, a character in If I Ran the Zoo, by Theodor Seuss Geisel.]
WORD HISTORY: The word nerd and a nerd, undefined but illustrated, first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo: "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" (The nerd itself is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.) Nerd next appears, with a gloss, in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail in a regular column entitled "ABC for SQUARES": "Nerd -- a square, any explanation needed?" Many of the terms defined in this "ABC" are unmistakable Americanisms, such as hep, ick, and jazzy, as is the gloss "square," the current meaning of nerd. The third appearance of nerd in print is back in the United States in 1970 in Current Slang: "Nurd [sic], someone with objectionable habits or traits. . . . An uninteresting person, a 'dud.'"
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