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Being a child and adolescent of the 50s and 60s in the Midwest (Chicago area), though it may be vulgar, I knew one of the worst things one could be called was a "turd." In the slang of the day, it had been conveyed to me that the person was being labeled as a social lowlife, with possible foolishness, awkwardness, poor outward appearance, obnoxious personality or other contemptibility associated with it — depending on how the term was delivered.
Moving on to the TV show, "Happy Days" — which was a period piece set in that era (and not all that far from my area)...
Fonzie saying it was the first time I ever heard anyone use the word "nerd." It was immediately obvious to me, with television standards being what they were at the time, "nerd" was the cleaner substituted version of "turd." I mean, it just made plain sense. It was being used in the same context, the same general meaning could be applied and it virtually had the same 4-letter sound effect. I seem to also remember it written on the side of Fonzie's garage apartment without the first letter being capitalized (as it is in the Seuss book). I doubt that 'nerd" was even capitalized in the shows scripts. From then on, it was a term used on the show liberally.
If "Happy Days" hadn't popularized the use of the word, I doubt anyone would be using it today. Although over the last couple decades or so, people seem to have conflated nerd with geek and applied scholastic or technical abilities with the term — possibly as the reason for the social awkwardness. This has seemed to soften the word somewhat, but the root of the meaning is still evident — not the lowest of the low, but still a misfit.
Therefore "nerd" appears to have little to no relation to the Dr. Seuss "Nerd" creature, which is listed among several creatures in If I Ran Through The Zoo with no distinctive characteristics mentioned. There is only an illustration which some describe as possibly nerdy. That seems like retrospective justification to me. Why would "Happy Days" single out such a nondescript character? Has there been any other relative sighted usage between the Dr. Seuss work in 1950 and "Happy Days in the mid-80s?"
I would be interested to hear what Garry Marshall, or the writer that put it in the show script, has to say on the matter.
If you find it implaudable that Happy Dys glommed onto a strange word from If I ran the Zoo. I find it even more implausible that Theodore latched onto a word from a TV series that debuted in 1974 in writing a book that hit bookstores in 1950.Newsweek reported that it was in common use in Detroit in 1951, among college students. ZRIT claims it origiinated there. It was reported at MIT in 1971. Phillip K. Dick spelled it nurd. What do Detroit, RIT, MIT and science fiction have in common? STEM - and many STEM students are stereotypical nerds slipstick and all.Online Entymology suggests it developed in the 1940s from nert, which was derived from nut. I suspect that as vets swelled colleges in the postwar era, many of them choosing STEM in the newly-nuclear age, that the lecture of "two kinds of studfents, drunk and khurd", knurd being somewhat inspired by nert, caught fire anjd was repeated by many STEM instructors. Many stem srudents looked (and still look) at Greek row as rich boy drunks, leeches on society, and were quite proud to be knurds, sober, and hard-working, even if it meant they were socially inept. I recall chemical engineering students having beer blasts, calling it "fluid transport lab". but nobody drank more than one beer, and some of the beers were almost untouched.
It's not that the consensus is wrong. There is no consensus. As I've often said over the years, humanity is divided into two sorts of people: those who agree with me and those who are wrong. In fact, I have a mathematical proof of that, but the margin is too small to record it here.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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