Re: this is what I got in the mail.

On Sun, 16 Mar 2003 02:47:27 -0500 "E. Notagain" <ecg321@...> writes:
> >> No, it's the nerd seeking
> >"Nerd"?  *I'm* a nerd.  Most of the nerds I know are highly ethical
> people.
> I've always considered nerd to be an insult. Geek is the complement.
> *g*
> I guess there's not much difference if you're not in certain
> cliques. But
> for those who've never heard about a difference: nerd implies
> either
> minimal intelligence and social skills, or someone with intelligence
> but is
> totally lazy and would rather play RPGs all day. Geek is, depending
> on
> which one of my friend's definitions you go by: a nice way of saying
> hacker
> (which is a good thing, to me, as I admire the hacker culture;
> primarily
> because of my romanticized notion about free information and unity
> in
> subcultures, which isn't really true, but I digress); or any
> intelligent
> person who has an odd passion (usually computers, but can be music
> or
> languages or the like).
> General consensus is that geeks don't usually have many "normal"
> friends.
> They're always intelligent, however, even if they are freaks or
> trivia
> buffs. Nerds can be smart or utter nitwits, and usually have only a
> handful
> of friends who double as other D&D or console game partners.
> Geeks usually have some style, even if it's really weird. Nerds
> don't.
> -- Erin Notagain --
-

Hmm.
I have a friend who says emphatically that he is a 'nerd', and *not* a
'geek', because "i don't go around biting the heads off of chickens!"
(which is where the word 'geek' comes from).
When we go off to play RPGs, we tell our non-player friends that we're
off to play 'nerdgames'.
Another friend of mine defines 'nerd' as roughly "anyone who gets way too
excited about something that there's no reason to get that excited
about".  Therefore, he says, "there are Star Trek nerds, and Tolkien
nerds*, and RPG nerds - but also sports nerds, fashion nerds, etc."

*although Tolkien nerds are an unusually hyper-educated class of nerds,
and are known not as 'Tolkien nerds' but 'Tolkien scholars'.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "alSayf, kasayf abyad..."
 (Sally's "Summer, like a white sword..." sig in alliterative Arabic)

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