Nerd Pride
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Nerd Pride was not yet born, however. It would not be until the late 1980s that Pride and Power would become part of the nerd lexicon and it would be the new century before it was formally celebrated. Back in the 60s the term still meant something ever so slightly different. The nerd had yet to step, like a shy and nervous gazelle, in to the full light of societal inspection. Instead, the word simply meant someone who was dull. Other synonyms at the time would include "drip" or "square". Man.
Nerd Day Cake
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It was the decade of the seventies, one of grace, delicacy and high culture, where the word truly came of age. The decade that gave us The Osmond Phenomenon, Wonder Woman on TV and Gerald Ford as President also brought the word nerd to maturity. Social ineptitude, overt bookishness and an extreme interest in Star Trek came to embody the word. Or vice versa. It was a strange decade.
Nerds Give the Finger
Image SourceFor a long time, for over a decade, the term nerd was not one that anyone - even the true nerd - would wish to have thrown towards them. Nerd Pride was not even nascent and the finger of nerd was spotty, bespectacled and book-toothed. The seventies, THE decade of the stereotype, saw the TV show Happy Days popularize the term like never before, even if its use was not in a fifties fashion (the decade in which the show was set). The Fonz, played by Henry Winkler, is responsible for the misappropriation of the term. May he burn in Hell.
Motivational Poster Nerds
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Nerds today should be aware, as they go about their way, of the debate that still surrounds the origin of the term. Many people claim, rightly or wrongly, that they originated it. Science Fiction author Philip K Dick claimed it as his own in 1973, even though he used the alternative spelling "nurd". This was later discovered to be untrue, having appeared in that form as far before as 1965 in a student magazine from Troy, New York. Something of a shame for nerd culture, as only Mr Dick could possibly surpass Dr Seuss in terms of sheer kudos as "High Originator of the Term".
Nerd Tattoo
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Although never recorded on paper (an old fashioned medium for education), many maintain that the word derived from the word "drunk" spelled backwards. A "knurd" would be someone who chose to study and be conscientious in their pursuit of academic achievement rather than being a hairy beer-swilling jock (whose very presence at a seat of academic learning makes them a walking talking oxymoron). Another version of the word, "gnurd" was widespread during the early seventies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT is often considered to be a kind of beacon for the global nerd diaspora, so this may well have some truth in it.
Nerd Pet
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Further etymological debate abounds. Some say that the word's origins are inextricably linked with the popular 1930s - 1950s ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. One of his dummies was called Mortimer Snerd and was a very dull witted chap. This is fairly close to the original meaning of the word however it was normally associated with boring rather than stupid. Others speculate that the word was adapted from the 1940s widespread term "nert". This was itself born of the word "nut" and meant someone who was stupid, crazy or both. This is improbable.
Spell-It-Out Nerd
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Thanks to the decade that was the seventies, the stereotypical image of the nerd was truly on the rise. In TV and film, the nerd is mostly presented as a white male (though in the UK's "The IT Team" one is Black British) with skin problems, braces and baggy trousers and thick lensed glasses. Some linguists posited the idea of the nerd as "hyper-white" as the depiction of nerds often involved their usage of arcane and old fashioned language. This supposed rejection of African-American oral culture through something approaching linguistic fascism by the nerd herd has, as an idea, been supremely trounced by the inexorable rise of the nerd of color in the nineties and noughties. The rainbow nerd is here to stay.
Nerd Art
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Typical of the nerd is their obliviousness to negative perceptions of them by others. When their interests lie in subjects that are of mystery or little interest to others, this was often translated in to disdain and a deliberate attempt to socially exclude them. This disdain has been typically turned on its head as the herd community reached critical mass in the early 1990s. As technology, mathematics and science become more pivotal each year to the survival of Homo sapiens, so the nerds have increasingly become self aware of their own importance to the continuation and constitution of society. Nerd Pride was born. The nerd is King.
