Nerd Amelioration

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

Ben Miller.

Ben.

Where are you calling from, Ben?

Flower Mound, Texas.

Well, welcome to the show.

How can we help?

Well, I was very interested and have been for some time in the word nerd.

Nerd.

N-E-R-D.

Yep.

And the reason I’m interested in it is because there’s so many connotations of the word and how it’s changed through just the last, I would say, 50 years or so.

I’m guessing.

In what way?

In the way that the connotation of the word nerd used to mean, you know, the person with big glasses and a pocket protector, kind of scholastic type.

And now the word has been used for people who go to Comic-Con and play Dungeons and Dragons or they’re, you know, geeks or nerds because they work at Google or in the Silicon Valley.

And so I’m interested in how that has changed over time.

And used to, whenever you were called nerd, it used to be sort of a negative connotation.

And now it seems like people are embracing it.

I’m a nerd with books or I’m a nerd with the sport or I’m a nerd with, you know, some kind of video game.

Right.

That’s true.

Are you one of those people who used to be called a nerd and hate it and now you’re called a nerd and don’t mind?

That’s right.

When I was young, of course, you know, you didn’t want to be called a nerd, and now it’s fashionable almost to be called a nerd.

Yeah, it’s a point of pride, right?

We like to say if we were a nerd pride parade, we’d be the grand marshals.

Word nerds.

Yeah, exactly.

And when I called in, I thought, what kind of a nerd am I by calling in with A Way with Words? Not just a show about language, but a public radio show about language.

I would say, yeah, you’re a gigantic nerd.

You’re nerdzilla.

This is a really common transformation.

It’s called amelioration, just to get that word out of the way.

Amelioration is making things better.

And this word has ameliorated twice.

When it was first coined, most people credit Dr. Seuss, although apparently it was also coined at, I believe it was MIT, a Vermont Technical Institute.

I’m not sure.

A couple technical universities.

Nerdy places.

Yeah, nerdy places.

These words kind of went from just being a general derogatory term to specifically being about somebody who was obsessed or even a monomaniac about a particular extreme field that most of the public didn’t know anything about.

Because remember, computers used to be this really strange esoteric thing.

And also a nerd was somebody who kind of sacrificed personal style and personal presentation.

That’s a nice way to say it.

In the service of their interests.

And then we see by the time Revenge of the Nerds comes around in 1984, we see, I mean, this is a movie about the nerds rising up.

I have many problems with that movie.

But the basic core to that movie, which is still really strong, is the idea of the nerds are like, oh, wait a second.

If we band together and work together, well, we’re as good as the jocks.

And it’s pretty interesting that that is kind of predicting what ends up happening in Silicon Valley and in the other technical realms where people get together with their weird technical aptitude.

And say, oh, wait a second, I’m not the only one.

When the internet came about, you could do a search on the internet and say, hey, there are other people who like to knit bonnets for cars.

I’m not the only one.

I’m not the only one.

And then you start to realize, wait a second, there’s actually thousands of us.

Wow, this is kind of cool.

Do you think that maybe the term has changed because of the internet and that communication and the bonding?

The internet is a really common media.

And by that means there’s more than one way of communicating on the Internet, so it’s not just a medium.

And also, I don’t want to credit it as some kind of magical device that culture goes in and new culture comes out because newspapers have behaved the same way.

Even telephone, even the telegraph in its small way has made its own contributions to transmitting culture.

That’s primarily what it does.

It makes culture available to more people.

And so in that way, yes, the Internet has done that.

But it’s not like endowed with some great magical qualities that somehow overtake all culture and somehow replace it with bits and bytes and binary code.

Yeah, but exponentially more powerful.

Yeah, because we’re more connected, right?

A larger community of people means larger change as possible.

Yeah, and I think the other thing is that now the word nerd has sort of been watered down to the point where you can be a nerd about any subject.

Yeah.

You know, a nutrition nerd or I don’t know.

Yeah, you’ll see that on, let’s say, the evening news on television.

You’ll see, say, oh, you’re such a weather nerd to this guy who’s got like four advanced degrees about meteorology and like, you know, understands physics and the way the world works and can explain the solar system or even the universe to you.

Like, they’ll say, oh, you’re such a nerd when really we’re talking at this point about some super high qualified people who are bringing mad science to bear on the big problems of the world.

That’s kind of an awesome nerd.

Right, right.

So, Ben, it’s always great to hear from another word nerd.

We appreciate your calling.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, take care now.

All right, bye-bye.

Thanks.

Well, no question that the nerds have really had their revenge.

I mean, look at Bill Gates or Sheryl Sandberg.

Right, the top-level nerds.

Yeah.

Well, take your nerd word questions to 877-929-9673 or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org or fire up your nerd Twitter and hit us up at WayWord.