Nerd

Nerd is a noun often used as an insult, to describe people who are seen as being weird, obsessive or antisocial. The first ever usage of the word "nerd" is in the year 1950 in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss where it is one of the fictional animals the narrator would put in the zoo if he were running it. An article of Newsweek Magazine published in 1951 said that the word "nerd" was used as a synonym for the slang word "square" which was at the time a popular pejorative. By the 1960's the phrase "nerd" started meaning someone who was intelligent but strange and antisocial especially if this person were interested in science-fiction was used throughout the United States and even in Scotland. In the 1970's it became extremely common to use the phrase "nerd" because it was routinely used in the television sitcom Happy Days. People labeled as nerds tend to be bullied in school more often than others are. In 1984, there was a movie called Revenge of the Nerds as a social commentary. A number of fictional characters such as Dilton Doiley, Peter Parker, Milhouse Van Houten and Hermione Granger are sometimes described as nerds.