h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: "Geeks"-The Truth - A797015
Author: Researcher 199637 - U199637

"Geeks"-The Truth.
"Either the Oxford Dictionary is wildly in accurate, or Geeks do not exist..."
I'm sick of being called a Geek. I want to put the record straight...

I don't know _which_ of the Oxford dictionaries you looked up, but mine certainly have 'geek'. And if you do a search at eg www.google.com you get over a million hits.

I always thought it was a fairly recent word, but apparently it dates from 1876.

That's interesting. The dictionary I looked it up i was more recent than 1876(I should hope so- it's my Dad's!). The date in it was 1964.
Perhaps the old editions didn't use those words.
Anyway, thanks- very interesting!
Elisius

i'm not surprised that you didn't find it in a 1964 dictionary.

it seems to have come into popular abusage at the same time as nerd.

on a seperate point, this article has been submitted for peer review to go into the edited guide, but as it stands, it breaches the writing guidelines. see the entry at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/Writing-Guidelines for more information.

'Geek' has been around quite a while in Australian slang in the sense of dekko or gander - ie a peep or look.

In US slang it used to mean someone who was socially awkward, then in phrases such as 'computer geek' someone you wanted to put down because they really knew the subject better than you did.

'Nerd' is more derogatory but dates only from the 1950s. Comes from a Dr Seuss character.

Bels
Hope not a nerd, wouldn't claim to be a geek, settle for gerd.

I recommend this article to by scythed due to violation of the Writing Guidelines.

Sea Change