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  From: Andrew Hill <andrew@fornax.net>
  To  : Linux SA <LinuxSA@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 09:10:21 +0930

Re: Geek or Nerd?

At 08:54  23/09/99 +0930, Robert Wuttke wrote:
>From what I gather, Nerd only came into existence in the 70's when it was
>first coined by the script writers on the show Happy Days, this is according
>to Tom Bosley (sorry about the spelling Tom...) who announced this live and
>would probably have made sure this statement is correct.

Another explanation is that nerd is a corruption of knurd, which is drunk
spelled backwards :-)

(see http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/, which also has a definition of
geek - interestingly, the Jargon File seems to indicate that both nerd and
geek have positive and negative aspects - I'd tend to agree that geek is a
good thing, nerd isn't (or at best is a geek wanna-be). But then again,
this list may not be the best place to ask for a non-geek's perspective on
what geek means :-)

Cheers,

--
Andrew Hill, B.Sc.             | "The key to productivity is to
                               | rotate your avoidance techniques."
andrew@fornax.net              |
http://www.fornax.net/~andrew/ |        -- Too Much Coffee Man


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