Since bringing my copy of She’s Such A Geek to work, I’ve been continuously asked to define the differences between geek, nerd and dork.
One fellow labmate insists vigorously that she’s not a geek because she’s too aware of pop culture and too busy filling the persona of the devil-on-your-shoulder. (Frankly, I don’t see a conflict between this and geekery at all).
Where do you draw the lines between nerd and geek? Are they one and the same?
Well, the test defines nerditude as being studious and loving to learn within the humanities and social sciences as well as the technical fields, while geekhood come from having deep interests in some select areas.
More specifically, the interests of geeks lie in the highly structured worlds of science & technology, gaming, fantasy, even law–anywhere where the rules are well-defined and don’t depend so much upon human interaction and politicking. These are places where someone doesn’t need mastery of social graces and nuances as they are commonly understood in the mainstream world. (Of course, the geek world has its own social nuances, as many of the essays in the book illustrate.)
Geekhood manifests itself in different ways and to different degrees. I knew I wasn’t as hard-core a geek as I’d once imagined myself to be when I was in a freshman literature precept and we were discussing the final scene in King Lear. At one point, the TA was commenting on the power of the line where Lear was holding the body of his daughter Cordelia and crying, “Never, never, never, never, never!” The TA referred to the power of this line of iambic pentameter, and this math major in our precept raised his hand and pointed out that in fact that particular line was not iambic pentameter, since the emphases were on the first syllable of each word, not the second. The math major was absolutely correct–and absolutely beside the point of the discussion.
I’d already figured out that I wasn’t going to major in math by then, but it reinforced my sense that I would have felt out of place.
In my experience, the term “nerd” has a broader focus on intellectualism. They aren’t just technology-oriented, they also use painfully correct formal English (except when it comes to disucssing women; in which they often use the term “female” even though outside of a scientific context using “female” as a noun is offensive and degrading most of the time), there’s also the stereotype of them all being into Latin, etc.
The term “geek” is not exclusive of “nerd” by any means, but geeks the term is limited to science, technology, and popular culture. So you have computer geeks, gaming geeks, TV-show/movie/etc geeks, there’s even a separate classification for anime geeks (often called “otaku”). Geeks also don’t necessarily have to be smart; they just have to be knowledgeable in their chosen fields.
To me, “geek” implies deep and overwhelming enthusiasm for the minutiae of some subject–which can include history, or cooking, or any number of other non-tech or F/SF-related things. “Nerd” implies more academic focus, and often broader interest–nerds are general overachievers, geeks are not necessarily. And it is possible to be both. I am a nerdy overachiever, but I am also a giant geek about all sorts of things (including history, cooking, AND science).
(”Dork” implies lack of social skills to me, and says nothing about intellectual interests.)
I’d always thought of geeks as having (possibly obsessive) specialist interests, but that this didn’t necessarily detract from their ability to interact with others. Nerd conveys to me a strong intellectual ability combined with a lack of social aptitude.
All of my friends self-label as geeks, none think of themselves as nerds, and dork is what they’d call someone else that was embarrassing or otherwise on their nerves.
My definitions are pretty much like tekanji’s.
Nerds: Enthusiastic about arcane academic subjects, especially in the humanities and social sciences. May be overachievers. Intellectual. Likely to learn Latin or Middle English.
Geeks: Enthusiastic about science, tech, SF, gaming, comics, etc. Likely to learn Klingon or Quenya.
Dorks: Shy, klutzy, and socially inept. Nerds and geeks generally have some degree of dorkitude, though not necessarily. After all, conferences, conventions, and informal “geeking out” or movie marathons are all highly social activities.
[...] Over at She’s Such a Geek and in a wallversation with Hume on Facebook, the age-old question arises: What distinguishes geeks, nerds, and dorks? [...]
I don’t know the difference between geek and nerd, but I don’t think “dork” is the same. Some of my younger friends do use them interchangeably, but I would take offense if called a dork. I can be socially difficult, but if I’m obnoxious, I meant to be. It’s not because I’m inept and I dorked up, so sorry. It’s because I’m a hardcore geek, and my priorities are different.
One learned geek enthusiast reports the etymology of geek as lower German/Dutch in origin, apparently in association to its useage in ‘12th Night’ by the royal bard Shakespeare. Hmmmmm. Guess I have to apologize to both my Dutch and English friends for the associations to ‘low’ and the historic Germanic sentence structure of the English language. But what is the exact etymology of the word Geek aka Gek? Enough of circus freak shows and biting assorted animal heads off! What is the previous incantations origins? Anyone? Anyone?