November 28, 2006 - Drive by

[sunshinegrrrl]

The redefinition of geek that I've seen a lot over the years is that a geek is someone who does anything passionately, sometimes to the exclusion of most everything else. Like gaming or computers. And then there was the high-functioning geek, who could concentrate heavily on one or two fronts and still maintain a somewhat normal social life. And then nerd, to me was a highly specialized sort of geek that dealt with hard sciences and tend towards the low social interaction outside of their own circle.

Which is a change. It used to be geeks were nerds without the science specialty. Just weird people with low social skills. But the meaning has changed a lot in the past ten years.

[Binks]

Perhaps it's a function of location. Where I live at least a nerd is a passionate technology user/sci fi fan whereas a geek is basically a nerd who does something other than technology.

[Deacon]

Perhaps it's a function of stupidity.