Re: On nerds and dreamers

On 3 Mar 2005, at 12.48 pm, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> For me, they denote similar kinds of personality, but while "nerd" is
> pretty
> neutral, "geek" is decidely negative. It also has connotations of
> exclusive
> obsession with a single field that "nerd" lacks. In practice I only
> speak of
> computer geeks and roleplaying geeks, but I suppose one could be a
> conlanging
> geek.
Really? I have exactly the opposite! You could offend me by calling me
a 'nerd' (because I'd assume that your intention), but calling me a
'geek' and I would probably not realise you were being offensive. Max's
definition of 'nerd' in Quebeckese French seems to be pretty similar to
my definition/understanding of nerd in Australian English. (By more
conventional folk, of course, 'geek' and 'nerd' are much closer to
synonyms. I know this, I just forget it because I don't use them as
such.)

In general I agree with Christian. Except about the girlfriend bit :(
Tho a few other geeky types got their first girlfriends at ~25, so
maybe I just have to wait five more years before the girls mature or
something :)

--
Tristan.