"Nerd" | Etymosemanticology
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- Опубліковано 13 лют 2017
- what is?
Discuss this video on reddit:
/ nerd
If you want to learn more, there were three main places I got information for this:
- eldacur.com/~brons/NerdCorner/...
- American nerd: the story of my people by Benjamin Nugent
- Nerd Ecology by Anthony Lioi
The XKCD comic I used:
xkcd.com/747/
The image from DesignTAXI I used:
designtaxi.com/news/351294/Wha...
intro song:
• Kadenza - Flight of th...
My grandma completely freaked out when I called myself a nerd. I mean, jaw on the floor, do you need counceling, this is the definition of self hatred, kind of look. I still can't convince her that its a good thing.
OH MY GOSH XIDNAF IS BAACCCKKK
HE'S ALIIIIVVVEEEE
?
He hadn't posted too long ago before this. Stop fishing for likes.
xy. jmive .ui
With 236 patrons, he better be alive!
yeet
I periodically forget Xidnaf is/was a brony until I rewatch the old videos, it always makes me chuckle, it's like a funny internet fossil.
"Quick, is anyone here a doctor?"
"I am!"
"Well you're a nerd!"
*high-fives
3:46
That awkward moment when your brain reads "pɹǝu" in IPA.
"pruh-oo," whatever that means.
You know your a language nerd when you accidentally read things in IPA.
+Zac Lobel A language pɹəu, even.
If you treat the "əu" as a diphthong, it's roughly how "pro" is pronounced in some dialects of English.
TheMrME1 that's a triple entendre! Him being a nerd reading "nerd" upside down is actually him being a pro at reading "pro"!
Joseph Connell that just made me lean back and go wəu bɹəu
I became a nerdfighter around 2009 when I was in 11th grade and nerd was still used as an insult then but it was thanks to the vlogbrothers that I stopped feeling that way. One time, I corrected our chem teacher's math and someone said "you're such a nerd" and I felt pride for getting that label for the first time. So yes, thank you to the vlogbrothers
Ephy he says he was given a grant from them
It's hip to be square.
Do you like Huey Lewis and The News? Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.
HEY PAUL!
A very angry Seal
Circles are cooler
It's hip to fuck bees.
It's edgy to be square. x4
I really like this type of video. You should do one like this, but for the word "meme"
saw your prof pic and I was like "bruh..."
but why
JmmiP 20 From what I've read, it still retains it's original meaning, "a unit of thought" in the same way a gene is "the unit of genetic expression". The idea is that memes "want" to get passed down, in a similar manner as genes. The modern use often refers to "internet memes" which some have pointed out act more like viruses than regular genes, which explains why some memes are no longer funny; we've grown immune to them
linguistics with dank maymays, yay
Jesus Olivares that's a pretty interesting point
i'm 20 and i've always loved being called a nerd. the few times anyone ever used the term in a derogatory sense it was someone much younger than me. they were always met with a big sarcastic "noooooo, really?"
nerd's always been a good thing to me.
an interesting side story here is when you mentioned "computer freaks." There is another spelling that was much more common in the late 70s and 80s of "computer phreaks." They were basically early hackers. The term derived from those who would pirate phone service _frequencies_ 😉. These "frequers" followed some of the things espoused by The Anarchist Cookbook, so the intentionally misspelled that name as a subversive measure, calling themselves "phreakers." And "computer geek" simply morphed from that label.
Huh wow
Learn something new every day. This is fascinating
And then that became friki in spanish..? Which is used for nerd and even geek?
I think the meaning flipped when the income potential of the people who it was used on skyrocketed. Fashion often follows economics, and lots of disposable income can make pretty much any identity 'cool'.
As for nerd as an insult, eh, I still hear it, and I think it is on the rise. When you start watching the more anti-intellectual communities, 'nerd' starts becoming more and more derogatory. Part of this, I think, is we are starting to see a split in the affluent tech communities between the 'nerdy' liberal/intellectual end and the more libertarian 'brogrammer' side who enjoy the wealth/power/status but are culturally very different than the pre-dot-com tech community.
Partly, I don't think the meaning changed, society's attitudes towards nerds changed, roughly when the uber-nerd, Bill Gates, became the world's richest man. He gave a famous speech which suggested that the audience go easy on their nerds because they'll be their bosses one day.
The meaning changed because the web propelled the meaning as it was changing on to the international English community where the words nerd and geek had no prior meaning.
neeneko Really? Where are you from? Legitimately curious here. I've never heard anyone use the word nerd as a real insult. Ever since I've been born. Maybe it has something to do with the communities I grew up with. I did go to private school for middle school and highschool (kind of a run-down-ish ones though), but I also knew a bunch of kids from public schools, and I was homeschooled through elementary so I was even familiar with people from my homeschooling communities. There was definitely judgement and bullying towards people who the word nerd traditionally represents. However, the word nerd was never actually used in my experience.
Mid atlantic US. Grew up in a hybrid rural/suburban area, and oh boy was it still used as an insult in the 90s. In college (late 90s, early 2000s) I heard it used by ChemEs in fairly derogatory ways.
Though even today I hear it crop up in tech circles. The general feel I get is that 'nerb' became fashionable when all those high paying jobs were going to people from that community, but as those jobs are migrating to more traditionally masculine people, the term is starting to fall into negative territory again.
neeneko Fascinating. I grew up in Maryland. Was born during the 90's. Maybe It's our age gap? Or maybe It's just the area I grew up in. I did go to an out of state college up in New England, but that only lasted a year (ran out of money), so maybe I just wasn't there long enough to have heard it.
Interesting, I play Jazz and conduct Wind Ensemble (basically like a classical orchestra but with primarily wind instruments and no strings) but I've never made the connection between "square" and the typical 4/4 conducting pattern. Often in music when we talk about something being "square" or "square as a box" we're referring to rhythms that are simple and on the beat (as opposed to swung figures or figures that are syncopated.)
The conducting pattern is really more of a triangle anyway.
4
| \
| \
23 (right hand, viewed from the perspective of the conductor)
I think he meant 2/4, actually
How did you get that "1" over the line! D:
Ik it's late but I suppose there's not much connection there. I imagine the origin of the usage "square" in such a context is referring to 4 as a square number, and 2 as the previous in the series of 4^x (or 2^x).
I'm a traditional jazz musician (family/cultural relations to it and other race music) and totally didn't follow that at first either 😲
nerd got thrown around as an insult a lot in my high school, I'm 20 years old. Granted I live in a place where the kids weren't so well informed
Same
"nerd"
"Your current use of the word is terribly outdated"
"See, this is why people call you a nerd"
+PrimaPunchy Just like there is no use debating the usefulness of philosophy. Once you discuss the usefulness, you're into philosophy.
KJ Teoh same. I'm almost 22, and I would say that being a nerd really wasn't considered "cool" until about the time I started high school in 2009. Before that, I was always one of the few kids even interested in video games, which was considered very nerdy. I was also good at and loved science and math (another nerdy trait). Growing up, girls would see that I was nerdy and be like "eww, you're a nerd. Go away". But now I've had women be like "I think it's so cool that you're nerdy".
+64imma well the 10s were never a good time to think about relationships, I mean there is seldom thinking involved for most of us.
+Sosiris Tseng bit of a catch 22 we have on our hands
First of all, great video! I wish you could make more. Here's an idea!
VIDEO IDEA: Filipino Language and its extreme flexibility and complexity.
Filipino uses the orders S-V-O, V-S-O, and V-O-S.
In Filipino, we use English around 50% of the time, mixing it with the Filipino languages.
Sentences in English can have more than 10 translations, differing with sentence patterns (S-V-O, etc.), native and loan terms, and verb conjugation.
We have "ligatures" or "pang-angkop" that connect adjectives to verbs or vice versa (sweet food; food that is sweet; matamis na pagkain; pagkaing matamis)
Verbs conjugate in 4 simple tenses: Past, Present, Future and Recent? (Katatapos). Adjectives and verbs repeat the first syllable of their root word if the doer (verb's subject) or describee? (adjective's object).
Like Japanese, we distinguish pronouns e.g. there and here in 3 ways: ito (close to speaker), iyan (far from speaker, close to listener), and iyon (far from both). We also have a different term for these in the context of "like this" or "in this way" e.g. Ganito ang pag-aalaga ng aso. (This is how to care for a dog or Caring for a dog is like this.)
To summarize, great job again and please consider making a video about the Filipino language and goodbye! :-)
I remember the 1960's and I still find it strange that people proudly call themselves nerd or geek. I'm also surprised that these words that once referred to people who were involved in math and science now refer to people who are involved in video games.
I remember being called by my friend as a "dork" when I was younger, maybe during our elementary years. It was a half-insult half-pet name, and in my hierarchy of "weird-ness" that word is at the most bottom of the list, followed above by "nerd" and "geek." Hence I always told my friends to consider me "geeky" instead of "nerdish."
Also, my high school teacher always called me as the "guy who dated nerds," as the girl that I was dating at that time (and also girls who were romantically associated to me through the grapevine) were mostly, well, to use his term, nerds.
*eternal sigh*
AND FINALLY XIDNAF IS BACK WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE
What's interesting is that many European languages have borrowed the word "nerd" from English, but in a lot of these languages the shift from derogatory to positive hasn't happened yet.
Best Valentine's Day video I've seen so far
This video is good.
The big bang theory is for people who aren't actually nerds in the sense you described making it a bit unbearable to me.
Right, they're actually geeks.
They're actually awful people lol
"Seersucker" wasn't made up by Dr. Seuss. It's a term for a stripey all-cotton fabric, the kind that old-timey railroad conductors would wear on their hat and overalls. Or like the suit an old-timey southern gentlemen might wear.
The word is Persian and means "milk and sugar," probably because of the typically creamy color and soft ripply or lumpy texture of the fabric.
Thank you! I was about to comment the same thing
GelidGanef ahahah! I commented this too. Looks like someone else on here likes Lexicon Valley ; )
Just about to comment the same thing.
In Persian it would be pronounced "Sheersheckar"
And there's a lyric from a well-known rock band: "My jacket's gonna be cut and slim and checked / Maybe a touch of *_seersucker_* , with an open neck"
I'm in my mid-30s and grew up in south Texas, attending high school in the mid- to late-90s.
"Nerd" was a common insult I received, often accompanied by physical violence.
Anecdotally, of course.
I'm not aware of Colonel Sassacre's etymological works. His daunting text of magical frivolity and practical japery is much more familiar to me
But be careful, dropping it may kill a cat.
Here in Israel the equivalent word in Hebrew is still used by some people as an insult, and people still don't generally call themselves nerds. But i am a happy, proud חנון.
Bary Levi interesting! how do you pronounce that?
Khnun with a hard Kh
dnys Who knows
Bary Levi wait, hard kh as in velar fricative or velar stop?
Jovan Emeric people who speak hebrew and have somehow mastered the dark arts of inferring vowels
My English teacher (I live in Italy) once called one of my classmates 'nerd' (it was meant to be derogatory)
That could be for two reasons.
I think that the younger people use 'nerd' a lot more often and so they are more knowledgeable about its connotations. And the teacher was Italian and not a native English teacher (possibly), so that could explain it.
Awesome to see you still making stuff, Xidnaf, and with Vlogbrothers sponsorship, too!
In Brazil (or at least in the social circles i've been through my life) it took some years for the word "nerd" to lose it's bad meaning, I'm a teenager/young adult and when I was a child I was bullyed at school for being nerd. Only in my early teenage years that nerds became more "respected" and viewed as a sub-culture as you said in the video.
So glad you're back. Keep it up, mate!
I love what you do here and I hope you stay here for a good while
1:36 A complete diagram of me
Same for me, except for the introverted part. I'm weirdly extroverted, but still bad at socializing. That's depressing.
Compulsive Walker Most important thing then is to not be ‘annoying’
@@metametodo sameee fellow extravert nerd
I wonder why
Many of the graphics are really clever and creative in expressing concepts quickly while keeping up with a fast paced narration.
wait what colonel sassacre
huh I didn't expect to see a reference to that here
Hyper7 Homestuck is secretly everywhere
*chants
ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US!
@@jettiz3703 ONE OF US, ONE OF Ũ̪̯̝̯̟̈̽̚S̝̯̈̃
I'm glad you're back. One of my favorite language nerds on UA-cam.
"People whose obsession with the minousha(forgive my misspelling) of some topic made them unbearable to be around." *realises he's watching a Xidnaf video* *_cries in a corner_*
I found it interesting to note that in Daria (an animated series that ran from 1997 until 2002), the word "geek" is still hugely pejorative, to all characters.
Right after that, the meaning shift hit the mainstream.
"Be there, or be square." Because if you're a square... You're never aROUND get it? ahahahaHAHAHAHAhaha ohhh shit Cthulhu save us
A-ha! Sweet you're doing Etymology videos now! I really look forward to more of these!
The word is used here in Germany as well. After my stay in the US, I associated the word nerd with what was described here in the video. Started calling myself and others nerds. People wouldn’t know how to react. Turns out the shift in semantics from having any derogatory meaning hasn’t faded here in Germany yet.
Wow finally! Xidnaf just uploaded a video after like 3 months!
That last line was PERFECT! XD Wrapped the video up perfectly!
Don't you just love it when dead you tubers come back to life! Awesome video as always Xidnaf!
1:28 so a 1950s equivalent of “Normie”?
and linguistics, my friend, just came full circle
I love it
Thanks for educating me! Keep up the great work!
I'm so glad to see my name at the end of the video! Keep the videos flowing :D
i really like how the video ends right after that last pun like its just too painful
Really enjoying your videos. Keep up the great work
Alright! Great new video, Xidnaf. Thanks!
I loved the little jazz beatnik dude with the beret
ahhhh, I love that total 360 at the very end of the video. that was fantastic lol
This is FANTASTIC and extremely smart. Subscribed!
TFW you want to see more xidnaf videos but there aren't any more and then bam. new video. :)
The way I see it, nerd is a person who is focused on technology and some disciplines of science that he neglects his social life. A geek is someone who is enthusiastic about the cultural aspects of science and technology, like animes, gadgets, and sci-fi. Think of it as a Linux guy vs Apple guy.
I've heard the word "Nerd" in circumstances, that don't come near to computer or science. Like action toys.
Half Eye It's not an Oxford dictionary definition. It's how I see it from hearing it in so many contextes. Action figure collectors would be geeks in my book. That, of course, doesn't mean the two subcultures can't overlap in one person; you can be both nerd and a geek at the same time.
@@HalfEye79 Wait about a Windows guy who likes Star Trek?
Always love your work
It seems Xidnaf is about my age, maybe even from the same year, according to your timeline. 1997 is my year of birth.
Great video format, I loved the timeline idea.
I would love for you to do a video on cursive and how it came about and the evolution of cursive ( not just English cursive but cursive in general)
I remember the good old days.
When it was hip to be square.
Ed, Edd and Eddy anyone?
dorks!
Kaneever that show is one of my favorite shows of all time. My favorite character was double d, just because I always related to him so much. Being smart, socially awkward, always kind and considerate, and not having a lot of friends.
DORK
OH MY GOD NOW I UNDERSTAND THE PULP FICTION THING THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS i thought it was just a quirky tarantino thing, this literally just made my day :D
in urban England we have the work neek, which basically means the same as nerd, but it doesn't really get used for poor fashion choices or whatever, mainly used for people who spend all their time at home revising for their GCSEs, GORGE
Man, your videos are pretty good. I've been thinking on making a youtube channel (a hobby) on linguistics and making my own language as well, but in Portuguese for a Brazillian or Portuguese-speaking audience. Do you mind if I use the same style of videos (I don't have any means of doing well edited videos as well) and explanations from time to time (obviously giving the credits)?
heh, go ahead, and good luck! I don't have a patent on stick figures or anything :P
I was a young person the 70s and 80s and suffered the negative connotation of the word "nerd".("Geek" too) I was quite pleased to have the connotation of these words undergo a metamorphosis. I was freed by the revelation that Geeks make good money!
I never really investigated the fact that people said that dr Seuss made the word nerd but I really appreciate you fixing that
excitedly watching a video on the etymosemanticology of the word "nerd" on valentines day.. this is my life now.
XIDNAF, YOU'RE ALIVE!!!!!
YAY! New video :D
"Nørd" in Danish was used as a derogatory when I went to school against me however I somehow managed to stop that by taking pride in it. And at the same time the national broadcast channel was using it as the name of two science programs it was running. One was "Lille Nørd" (literally "Small Nerd") which was mainly about nature and aimed at younger kids and the other was "Store Nørd" (literally "Big Nerd") which was kinda like Mythbusters except they would have some sort of challenge they would have to solve with engineering and was aimed at older kids and young teens. That probably is part of what gave me the confidence to proudly call myself a nerd.
Also "Nørd" is one of the few English words imported during the later half of the 20th century that was changed. Others from the same time like computer, internet and e-mail were just copied verbatim. But "Nerd" was changed into "Nørd" which is probably because trying to pronounce "Nerd" in Danish while keeping it similar to English sounds like "Nørd" and people just wrote it that way, which actually is incredibly interesting because Ø is usually imposible to explain to English speakers, but I think I have a way now.
"When they conduct a 4/4 beat"
[shows something closest to resembling 2/4]
Good video, just had to nitpick.
0:45 I'd be curious if we could find a source that pre-dates Suess, specifically by looking at Detroit centric sources
Awesome, as always. Thanks.
Also, don't forget the popular parody hit "white and nerdy" by weird Al Yankovich! :-)
Phrenomythic i remembered Captain Underpants
Awesome video. as someone who was born in the early 80's and who grew up as a 90's and 2000's geek * nerd I think this is very accurate.
1:09 HOMESTUCK REFERENCE, HOMESTUCK SPOTTED ALERT THE GUARDS
I love this channel
YAY! A NEW VIDEO!!!
A couple of years ago for me, I was in a class where (stupid assignment) people were writing down complements on other people's cards. I wrote down nerd, as a complement, on a very nerdy kids card. And he got randomly upset at it (atleast for me since always saw it as a good thing) and I even got in trouble. Why I hate school: love learning- hate peers
MC GEM id be upset too. Being a pop culture or music or anything popular nerd is cool and accepted. Being a nerd of anything academic is awful. I love talking about linguistics, history and medieval weaponry. And so the term nerd has been used negatively towards me. People around me think that im boring and uninteresting. And this is unrelated but people keep saying that i like to talk about "unimportant shit" while they talk about celebrities getting married or new movies coming out. Its so annoying.
you know, you dont have to make me feel worse, that was nearly two years ago, and it isnt anything like your life, so no need to be rude yourself
MC GEM didnt mean to be rude or anything. Just telling my experience. If i was in that situation. Honestly i wouldve brushed it off because i get insulted all the time and i dont care at this point. But if i knew you meant it as a compliment. I would've thanked you.
Great video! I love your stick figures.
You should make a video about the basque language
Surprised not to hear at least a mention of the original (or at least previous) meaning of "geek", from Merriam-Webster: "1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake."
i was born in 1979 and definitely was called a nerd in a derogatory way growing up. I am also in the generation who first started using computers in middle school and didn't have the internet until college. So it seems to me the word nerd shifted as generations shifted to ones that grew up with computers and where computer skill would be seen as necessary for everyone rather than a deviation from the norm. So essentially, being really good at something everyone has to do is much more socially rewarding than being really good at something very few people do.
I've never thought that the word was so [relatively] new to the English language.
I've also noticed that "nerd" can be sometimes applied not only to a specific group of people, like those who are very into technology and science, but to anyone with an obsessive interest. For example, i hear phrases like "language nerd", "science nerd", "videogame nerd" thrown around quite a lot. Can it be that the meaning of the word is undergoing yet another major shift at this very moment?
A vlogbrothers grant? Moving on up.
Love it every time you post! But at 1:04 you mentioned a 4/4 beat when your animation showed a 2/4 or a 2/2 beat... or a... well that small pattern has many possibilities, but a standard 4/4 beat looks like this.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Conducting-44time.svg/600px-Conducting-44time.svg.png
Wow. I kindof suspected something like this had gone on, but hadn't looked into it. It totally explains why I see no problem with the words geek and nerd, but when I was younger, they were on the unspoken you-can't-say-these-words-for-some-reason list. Parents would have grown up in the transitional period and seen it as an insult, which is why they didn't like us using it. It wasn't really a strict ban, like with swear words, but more an obligatory "That's not very nice, is it?" whenever it came up in a movie or whatever.
Would this be a shift of definition or connotation? It seems like for at least a while now the word nerd has meant the same thing it’s just shifted from negative/derogatory to something more neutral or even positive in certain circles
what about seersucker as in the fabric material?
I think you mean 2/4 (or 2 by anything), which is what the conductor in the animation you showed is conducting.
love the ending
You should link to your patreon in the description so more people can easily find it (:
3:41 says there is a link in the description for the comic... but there's none.
xkcd.com/747/
WOOPS
thanks, I'll put it in right now!!!!!
Trippy and paradoxical.
Canst thou make a video comparing old German and English?
They are surprisingly similar.
IT'S ALIVE
The end was such a truth bomb tho
1:09 Homestuck reference :D
Oh my Боже
Xidnaf is both a brony AND a homestuck?
(6_6) (idk what that face means)
And 4:39, I
Releases about video about nerds on my birthday. Seems fitting
I kind of want to see the Deseret Alphabet covered by you, it would be awesome.
4:22 bruh
im pretty sure I completely match like 85% of all of the meanings of nerd and geek ever
Imagine someone watching this 50 years from now.
Your lifetime? I guess you're a lot younger than me. When I was a kid, I got called a nerd or geek as an insult a lot. I still remember when there was this girl in my class I thought was nice just kind of turned on me to get a laugh from the other guys in the class, and she said "Oh, look, I made the poor nerd cry!"
After watching Inside Out, I'd have to say that's one of my core memories, so while I'm happy it morphed into something more positive, I still remember when it really wasn't and it still kind of brings up memories of bad times.