8.20.2006

Gang of Nerds

Since I seem to be in a rather loving mood lately (loving the woods, dancing in the kitchen, etc.) I'll just jot down something else I love, dictionaries. Definitions are highly entertaining. For instance, my rather cheap dictionary tells me a nerd is a noun, slang, meaning "an unpopular or socially inept person, esp. one regarded as excessively studious." There is nothing remarkable about this definition if given a cursory glance. I, however, take exception to the "excessively studious" bit. Are we now to be judged by the publishers of a $5.99 dictionary? Such is life.

Watch out for me and my gang of nerds. One unpopular or socially inept person generally does little harm, but get a gaggle of us together and you might need to run for cover.

2 comments:

Deepfry said...

i always wondered what a group of nerds was called. a "gaggle," you think? i prefer a "murder," like crows. As in, "I was sitting at the reference desk and a murder of nerds stormed the library, rampaging our collection and making off with the newest edition of the Oxford Dictionary National Biography."

another kind of nerd said...

I think the kind of nerd would settle the gaggle versus murder of nerds question. For instance, a pack of history nerds would most definately be a gaggle, unless some Romanists were in the mix. A pack of chemistry nerds is an entirely different beast, as many chemists also moonlight as pyromaniacs.