Re: this is what I got in the mail.

Steg Belsky scripsit:

> 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."
Then there's the movie _Revenge of the Nerds_ (1984), which when I first
saw it (cheering all the way) defined nerddom for me.  I tend to say
"geek" more nowadays, but for me the terms are basically synonymous.
BTW, if you want to know what it was like before geeks ruled, see the
movie (but skip the sequels, and rent it, don't watch the edited TV version).
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0088000

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

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_