« Egg Cracker | Home | Amazing Always Together Sock Clip »
January 13, 2008
The origin of 'nerd'
It comes from Dr. Seuss's 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo," according to a review in the January 12, 2007 print edition of The Economist of David Anderegg's new book, "Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them."
The passage: "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!"
Longtime close readers with a better memory than me may recall that Dr. Seuss also invented the word blog, back in 1953.
You could look it up.
January 13, 2008 at 10:01 AM | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c5dea53ef00e54fdc8c278833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The origin of 'nerd':
Comments
Seuss's use is non-sensical and not related to our definition of a 'nerd', thus in my humble opinion not the source of the term. I was a student at RPI in Troy, NY and other internet sources show the term originated there. I learned it as "Knurd". The frat guys were drunks and the pocket-protector adorned studious ones were the opposite - drunk spelled backwards.
Posted by: Bob | Jan 13, 2008 9:20:21 PM
