perfidy

GeekLethal's last post prompted a user comment from the Three Armed Man. TAM suggested that the criteria outlined by GL really point to Dork, rather than Nerd. This raises the perennial semantic dilemna, how do we define these terms? Saturday Night Live once had a sketch called, “Geek, Dweeb or Spaz?” Where contestants had to determine which category the panelists fell into. This is the question we need to answer.

The jargon file defines geek thusly:

A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance. Geeks usually have a strong case of neophilia. Most geeks are adept with computers and treat hacker as a term of respect, but not all are hackers themselves — and some who are in fact hackers normally call themselves geeks anyway, because they (quite properly) regard ‘hacker’ as a label that should be bestowed by others rather than self-assumed.

One description accurately if a little breathlessly enumerates “gamers, ravers, science fiction fans, punks, perverts, programmers, nerds, subgenii, and trekkies. These are people who did not go to their high school proms, and many would be offended by the suggestion that they should have even wanted to.”

Originally, a geek was a carnival performer who bit the heads off chickens. (In early 20th-century Scotland a ‘geek’ was an immature coley, a type of fish.) Before about 1990 usage of this term was rather negative. Earlier versions of this lexicon defined a computer geek as one who eats (computer) bugs for a living — an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. This is often still the way geeks are regarded by non-geeks, but as the mainstream culture becomes more dependent on technology and technical skill mainstream attitudes have tended to shift towards grudging respect. Correspondingly, there are now ‘geek pride’ festivals (the implied reference to ‘gay pride’ is not accidental).

Nerd is defined in this way:

nerd: n.

1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary social rituals.

2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare geek.

The word itself appears to derive from the lines “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!” in the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo (1950).

Sadly, the file does not have entries for spaz, dweeb or dork. But I think the time has come for a definitive taxonomy of the various subspecies. We can move toward this goal by outlining the salient characteristics of each type:

Nerd: the nerd is base type, from which all the others are derived. Nerds are bright, and lacking in social skills. They have odd interests. They are dilettantes, and usually end up consumed by counterproductive pursuits like the SCA, Star Wars collectables, and Star Trek conventions. Some nerds can achieve purpose in life translating the arcane thoughts of the geeks to the mundane normal people. Nerds are hapless, though they often have a goofy charm.

Geek: the geek is the most competent of the subspecies. Geeks transcend the limitations of the nerd through focus. Geeks have real, and often marketable skills – usually in the tech/computer fields, but in theory these skills could be in almost field. Geeks have social skills, but they are not the natural, inborn manners possessed by most people. Geeks learn to deal with others the same way they attain mastery of any other skill; by observing the humans around them, and deducing rules and patterns, and through experimentation. This sometimes leads to embarrassment when a rule is over generalized, or applied incorrectly. Geeks are often odd, but have an edgy competence about them.

Dork: the dork is the nerd’s dimmer younger brother. Dorks can’t fit in. Unlike nerds, they can’t even get laid at SCA events. Dorks are strange, but without the redeeming semi-charming goofiness of the nerd, or the skills of the geek. The dork’s attempts at humor or charm always come off as vaguely (or, let’s be honest, often extremely) creepy. Dorks are annoying.

Dweeb: the dweeb is the nerd-lite. Not so odd, not so bright, in many respects the dweeb is both a substandard nerd and a substandard normal person. Dweebs don’t fit into the everyday world, but neither are they completely at home in the clannish, ritualized worlds of the nerd. Where a nerd knows that he won’t get picked for kickball, the dweeb will keep trying. Dweebs are misfits.

Spaz: the spaz is the nerd on crack. Your everyday nerd is quiet, sedentary, and overweight. The spaz takes the basic nerd template and cranks it up to 11. The spaz is hyper, annoying and restless. The spaz is the only type more likely than the dweeb to be chosen as the spare.

Hopefully, this tentative classification scheme will be of use.