Nerd or Geek? Cast Your Vote Today!

My father, silly man, always acted like being called a "nerd" was the highest honor. As teenagers, when he would tell yet another corny joke, we'd all roll our eyes and inform him that he had reached a new level of nerd-dom. He would blush, bat his eyes, smile a bashful smile and humbly respond, "I'm not your average fool, you know." (Ponder that comment for just a moment.)

They say that a girl will marry someone who is just like her Dad. Well I sure proved that maxim! Steve is right up there with the elite nerds. A Nerd among nerds, if you will. Sometimes I feel kind of bad about calling him a nerd, but what other terms are available to me? "Intelligent"? "Super-duper smart"? "Ruler of the network world"? "Corny joke teller extraordinare"? None of that seems to quite encapsulate the man I know.
Remember now, my upbringing was one in which calling someone a "nerd" was the highest compliment. (And remind me later to tell you how my family warped the term "stupid" into praise for a joke of particular hilarity. "That's so stupid!" was often giggled around the dinner table to much chortling and milk spewing. My poor Mom.)

So anyway, back to the nerd issue. My friend, Rhonda, calls her hubby her "geek." So I began to wonder if maybe being a "geek" was more P.C. than being a "nerd." I decided to do a little research, and I think you'll find the results surprising. And stupid too... in the best way possible.

From The Free Dictionary:

nerd

n. Slang

1. A foolish, inept, or unattractive person.

2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.

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[Perhaps after Nerd, a character in If I Ran the Zoo, by Theodor Seuss Geisel.]

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nerdy adj.

Word History: The word 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 is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.)

I've always thought Dr. Seuss was a genius. Now I know it.


geek

n. Slang

1.

a. A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.

b. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.

2. A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.

geeky adj.

Our Living Language Our word geek is now chiefly associated with student and computer slang; one probably thinks first of a computer geek. In origin, however, it is one of the words American English borrowed from the vocabulary of the circus, which was a much more significant source of entertainment in the United States in the 19th and early 20th century than it is now. Large numbers of traveling circuses left a cultural legacy in various and sometimes unexpected ways. For example, Superman and other comic book superheroes owe much of their look to circus acrobats, who were similarly costumed in capes and tights. The circus sideshow is the source of the word geek, "a performer who engaged in bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken."

So...
Is it preferrable to be a sideshow performer who bites off chicken heads, or a sneery humanoid from a Dr. Seuss book? The polls are open. Cast your vote.