Re: On nerds and dreamers

Sally Caves wrote:

> Meanwhile, back to nerd and geek.  What do others think is a distinction
> between these two?   "Geek" does seem to have gravitated more to the
> technical side than "nerd" does.
I think "geek" still has connotations of weirdness or bizarre habits,
while a "nerd" would be involved with things that most people consider
to be boring and uninterested in more social activities. I tend to
prefer the word "nerd" since I learned that "geeks" were originally
carnival performers who supposedly did things like biting off the heads
of chickens. Why someone would pay to see that is beyond me....

But I've heard the usage of "geek" referring to a carnival performer
exactly once, in the lyrics of a song which a little Google searching
reveals to be "The Carny" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. So I don't
think it's probably that well known. I think Andreas Johansson's
definitions are closer to my understanding of these words.

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