Nerd

 ( Academic Culture ) 

An alternate spelling, The many spellings of Nurd, Fall 1970 (revised online 2015) as nurd or gnurd, also began to appear in the mid-1960s, or early 1970s. Current Slang: A Quarterly Glossary of Slang Expressions Currently In Use (1971). Vol. V, No. 4, Spring 1971, p. 17 Author Philip K. Dick claimed to have coined the "nurd" spelling in 1973, but its first recorded use appeared in a 1965 student publication at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).Personal Correspondence (1973-9-4) reported on the webRPI Bachelor (1965), V14 #1 Oral tradition there holds that the word is derived from knurd ( drunk spelled backwards), which was used to describe people who studied rather than partied. The term gnurd (spelled with the "g") was in use at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by the year 1965. More Mathematical People (D.J. Albers, J.L. Alexanderson and C. Reid), p. 105 (1990). Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. The term "nurd" was also in use at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as early as 1971.

According to Online Etymology Dictionary, the word is an alteration of the 1940s term " nert" (meaning "stupid or crazy person"), which is in itself an alteration of "" (nutcase).

The term was popularized in the 1970s by its heavy use in the sitcom Happy Days. On January 28, 1978, recurring characters The Nerds premiered on Saturday Night Live. The term was further popularized in the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds.

It has been argued that intellectuals are automatically nerdy because they were secretly envied, arrogant, or out of touch. However, Paul Graham stated in his essay, "Why Nerds are Unpopular", that intellect is neutral, meaning that many high school students neither admire nor deride classmates for intelligence itself. He also states that it is only the correlation that makes smart teens automatically seem nerdy, and personally defines a nerd as someone deemed not socially adept enough. Additionally, he says that the reason why many smart kids are unpopular is that they "don't have time for the activities required for popularity," since they instead prioritize intellectual, solitary pursuits, at the cost of being branded as "nerds." He also goes on to criticize suburbia and the public education system for enabling a popularity contest.

In the United States, a 2010 study published in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication indicated that Asian Americans are perceived as most likely to be nerds, followed by White Americans, while non-White and African Americans were perceived as least likely to be nerds. These stereotypes stem from concepts of Orientalism and Primitivism, as discussed in Ron Eglash's essay "Race, Sex, and Nerds: From Black Geeks to Asian American Hipsters".Eglash, R. 'Race, Sex, And Nerds: FROM BLACK GEEKS TO ASIAN AMERICAN HIPSTERS'. Social Text 20.2 71 (2002): 49–64. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

Being adept with computers, often considered a "nerdy" interest, is now widespread and even an expectation in professional and academic spaces. Many celebrities in the first decade of the 2000s publicly expressed interest in smartphones and other handheld devices. Similarly, many stereotypical "nerdy" interests, such as video games, , comic book franchises, and fantasy and science fiction works, are now international popular culture hits.

Johannes Grenzfurthner, researcher, self-proclaimed nerd and director of nerd documentary Traceroute, reflects on the emergence of nerds and nerd culture:

In the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds, Robert Carradine worked to embody the nerd stereotype; in doing so, he helped create a definitive image of nerds. Additionally, the storyline presaged, and may have helped inspire, the "nerd pride" that emerged in the late 1990s. American Splendor regular Toby Radloff claims this was the movie that inspired him to become "The Genuine Nerd from Cleveland, Ohio". In the American Splendor film, Toby's friend, American Splendor author Harvey Pekar, was less receptive to the movie, believing it to be hopelessly idealistic, explaining that Toby, an adult low income file clerk, had nothing in common with the middle class kids in the film who would eventually attain college degrees, success, and cease being perceived as nerds. Many, however, seem to share Radloff's view, as "nerd pride" has become more widespread in the years since. MIT professor Gerald Sussman, for example, seeks to instill pride in nerds: