Saturday, November 17, 2012

Are you a geek or a nerd?

The terms "geek" and "nerd" have undergone a transformation in their use since they were used by the cool kids at school to abuse the brainiacs. The BBC has recently published an article asking, "Are 'geek' and 'nerd' now positive terms?" The article explores the changing use of and attitudes to geeks and nerds, but perhaps its over analytical. Simply it's hard to look down on geeks and nerds when they've amongst the wealthiest and most innovative people on the planet: Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Peter Theil, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg...
    Incidentally, Dr. Seuss invented the word "nerd" to describe one of the creatures in the 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo." A "geek," it turns out, used to be a performer at carnivals who did outrageous stunts.

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