The English language is constantly changing and acquiring new vocabulary. So many of the words we use on a regular basis, such as Internet, d’oh!, google, jiggy, scientology and nerd, were unheard of a mere 60 or 70 years ago. For some of these words, their entrance into common parlance is easily traced. “D’oh!” for example, comes to us directly from Homer Simpson of The Simpson’s TV show. Some words, such as “Internet,” were created to describe new technological developments. Others were coined by individuals and have been, for one reason or another, adopted by society at large, such as “scientology” and “Google.”
Most words, however, have a slightly more blurred etymological history than “d’oh!” or “Google.” “Nerd,” one of the more common insults in the classroom, is one of those words.
Experts can’t seem to agree on where it comes from. The first known recording of the word actually came from Dr. Seuss’s 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo. He writes: “And just to show them, I’ll sail to Ka-troo/ And Bring Back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo,/ A Nerke, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too!” Theories abound, however, as to how the word evolved from a funny, little, tufty-haired Seussian character to its current use—an introverted and rather dull intellectual. It could be connected to the 1940s slang word “nurt,” a variation on “nut,” meaning a mundane person, and when Seuss coined his version, it picked up the old meaning. Or, perhaps younger children ed the term onto their older siblings, who adopted it for their own uses.
On the other hand, the development of the word could be entirely independent of Dr. Seuss’s influence. One theory is that the word, originating on university campuses, was originally spelled “knurd”—“drunk” backwards—and was used to describe students who preferred studying to drinking and partying. Another possibility is that “nerd” was popularized as a nickname for 1950s Nortel employees. The company, originally named Northern Electric, hired technologically gifted (and let’s face it, kind of nerdy) young men for Research and Development, amongst whom it became stylish to wear company pocket-protectors sporting the acronym NER&D.
Due to one of these reasons, or most likely a combination of all four, by the late 1950s the word “nerd” was synonymous with “square” or “geek,” and we now have another mildly offensive and occasionally endearing term to add to the common arsenal of insults.
Yours sincerely, the Word Nerd/Knurd/Nurt/NER&D
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