The Nerd Corner

A Brief History of the Nerd

According everything I've been able to discover, the word "nerd" first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo*:

"And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!"

I found out about this passage from the American Heritage Dictionary (AHED). Their entry for the word "nerd" contains a short article on the word's history. The next appearance of the word that they cite is in the "ABC for SQUARES" column in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail. Their definition reads:

"Nerd -- a square, any explanation needed?"

"Nurd, someone with objectionable habits or traits.... An uninteresting person, a 'dud.'"

The Jargon File dismisses the drunk/knurd origin as "a bogus folk etymology" and I am inclined to agree. However, students and graduates of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute seem particularly convinced of this origin and a couple of corespondents have claimed that the word was coined at RPI and was in common usage by 1964 or 1965. So far, at least, I haven't seen any documentation of this origin, but perhaps it exists at RPI. I will continue to look into this. If anyone out there can document this origin, please send me e-mail.

In the last year or two my request for e-mail on this has netted me no solid documentation, but it has come up with a couple of useful bits of oral tradition and folk etymology:

From: "Diane"
Subject: Nerd...
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000

[T]here was an alligator joke going around about 1955 or so. The alligator was poking fun at a drunk who became quite indignant. "Stop or I shall turn you inside out". "Drunk, drunk", taunted the alligator. So the drunk grabbed him and turned him inside out. "Knurd, knurd" continued the alligator.
It was funny in 1955.

From: "Paul"
Subject: Nerd
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000

I attended high school in Cocoa, Florida, from 1959-1961. While I was there, [...] (one of the class wits), mentioned knurd to me, saying that it was drunk spelled backwards. I didn't understand why anyone would want such a word (I was too nerdy, I guess), but it stuck in my head all these years. Whether this is the legitimate origin of "nerd", I can't say, but this bit of "bogus folk etymology" was already in place 40 years ago.

From: "Karl"
Subject: knurd
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997

Everyone knows that the rowdy ex-servicemen attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute thought that drinking was a major activity, and that the overly studious non-military students who did not drink were wimps. The servicemen were referred to, rather accurately, as drunks and they in turn called the moderate to nil imbibers "knurds". Do a web search on knurd and see what you get.

Karl
RPI '64

So far, they're all based on personal memories and what "everyone knows" and take the term back to the early 60's (although the joke is somewhat older and is used in the reverse sense, if you will, in that it is applied to a drunk). Given that "nerd" was well enough established to be cited in "ABC for SQUARES" in 1957, "knurd" could still be derived as a pun on "nerd". So, if you've got any solid documentation on "knurd", keep those cards and letters coming, boys and girls.

Another correspondent, Randy, who sent me e-mail in response to this page just after it was cited in Entertainment Weekly gives another possible origin of the term using the "nurd" spelling. He first encountered the word in the late 1960s. He was told it had originated several years earlier at the summer clinics for high school debaters at Harvard University, where it was a disparaging acronym, ostensibly standing for Novice UnReliable Debater. E.g., "He shows promise, but his partner is a NURD."

Personally, I think that this usage could explain the appearance of the "nurd" spelling in Current Slang in 1970, but I don't think it explains the origin of the word itself. In fact, the acronym is rather forced. The natural abbreviation for "Novice Unreliable Debater" is N.U.D. and the use of the R suggests intentional punning on a pre-existing word, "nurd" or "nerd", and we know that "nerd" as a synonym for "square" goes back to at least 1957.

It seems likely that the N.U.R.D. and drunk/knurd variants both contributed to the spread and longevity of the word and to the multiplicity of spellings but given the 1957 citation with the "nerd" spelling, they cannot be seen as the origin of the word. The best candidate for that remains Dr. Seuss.

April 2003 addendum

The latest indicates that science fiction author Philip K. Dick claimed in 1973 to have coined the word, spelling it "nurd":

From: "Arne"
Subject: nerd
Date: Mon Apr 14, 2003

re: Your account of the origin of the word "nerd". I have in my possession a letter from Philip K. Dick, dated Sept. 4, 1973, where he writes about his new book:

"They sent me the blurb flaps.. and they are so badly written... shit, if I tried to parody the blurbs it would not be possible. But at least the nurd (a neologism of my own) who wrote them did read the book".

Sincerely,
Arne

The letter doesn't indicate when Dick claims to have invented it, but his claim was made 3 years after the spelling appeared in Current Slang, and 16 years after "ABC for SQUARES" first defined "nerd". [Addendum: 22 years after the first appearance of "nerd" in Newsweek. See below.]

A couple of weeks ago, though, I got what's perhaps the most tantalizing origin story from Peter. He suggests that the term originated at the Northern Electric Research and Development Laboratories in Ottawa. Northern Electric, now called Nortel, is Canada's equivalent of Western Electric in the US. Their first R&D lab, called the Special Products Division was founded in 1937. Plastic pocket protectors were invented in Chicago in 1947, and the N.E. R&D labs were established in 1959, he points out, and concludes by saying,

Now I 'know' that somewhere out there is a picture of one of these Northern Electric R&D boys wearing the white shirt, sleeves rolled up, black thick framed glasses and a pocket protector with 'N.E.R.D. Labs' printed right on it... I've seen pictures of my father (sans glasses) in a General Electric lab of that vintage 1955-1960 with a similar pocket protector. It will be found... and I will send it to you. ;-)

He paints a nice picture here, but sadly it remains pretty speculative. Clearly R&D activities and departments had existed at Northern Electric for more than a decade at the time Dr. Seuss used the term, but the earliest date that the actual name "Northern Electric Research and Development Laboratories" is documented so far is 9 years after "If I ran the Zoo" and 2 years after "nerd" was documented in "ABCs for Squares".

I'd love to see solid documentation of the "N.E.R.D. Labs" acronym being used back in the 40s, especially if it came in the form of a picture featuring a NERD Labs pocket protector. The image is just too perfect. But for now it remains just a wonderfully creative suggestion. The documentation still favors Dr. Seuss, I'm afraid.

Keep those cards and letters coming, boys and girls. Even though I haven't seen any solid evidence that the Dr. Seuss origin is wrong, we've found a lot of factors that probably helped the term become popular and that colored its meaning and variant spellings. And who knows, some day...

May 2003 addendum

A very interesting piece of documentation has come my way. Mark Worden wrote to forward me a message that he retrieved from the American Dialectical Society archive of their ADS mailing list. The message is from someone at Merriam-Webster, as follows:

Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000
From: "Joanne M. Despres"
Subject: Re: Wuss & others
To: ADS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

No, the 1951 citation in our files does not have anything to do with the Dr. Seuss character; it is the first use of _nerd_ we've been able to find that applies to any person having the characteristics described in the definition ("an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person"). The Seuss critter is, however, mentioned in our etymology as a possible source for the generic term.

The citation, by the way, comes from Newsweek (October 8, 1951, p. 28) and reads as follows:

"In Detroit, someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd, or in a less severe case, a scurve."

Joanne Despres
Merriam-Webster

If the Newsweek citation is accurate, then the usage of nerd as "square" can be traced back to within a year of the publication of If I Ran the Zoo. While it would still be possible for Seuss's word to have made its way into the vernacular, it would have to do so exceptionally fast. It's also interesting that this story reports the word as appearing in Detroit, just across the border from Windsor, Ontario. This would make sense if the N.E. R&D origin were true. A photo of a Northern Electric nerd has become even more desirable.

I have yet to been won over from the Dr Seuss explanation, but it's getting close.

June 2004 addendum

RPI graduate, Prof. Dean Chatfield, wrote to draw my attention to the web page of RPI's humor magazine, the Bachelor

From: "Dean C. Chatfield"
Subject: "Nurd" Info
Date: June 9, 2004 23:01:32 EDT

Greetings,

I came across this web site http://www.drkenner.com/html/rpi_bachelor.htm for the RPI humor magazine "Bachelor" (1952-1971) which seems to confirm the use of the term "Nurd" at RPI by at least 1965. Notice the picture of the rear cover of the Homecoming 1965 edition of Bachelor (on the lower right-hand side of the page) with the headline "Why are 61 nurds so excited?" There is a contact for more info on the Bachelor on the web page. I am a 1989 grad of RPI so I do not have any personal knowledge of the Bachelor, but when I was a freshman we were told by upperclassman (and by the "Unofficial RPI handbook") that "nerd" = "knurd" = "drunk" backwards.

Thanks!
Dean

This takes the documentation of the nurd spelling back to '65, about the time Karl was a student and remembers being told the drunk->nurd origin. Still, it's 10 years after the first "nerd" appearance in Newsweek, so I'm still leaning towards the Dr. Seuss origin, possibly in combination with the N.E.R&D origin. Additionally, it's worth noting that even at the putative site of the "Knurd" coinage, the earliest documented spelling is "nurd", without the K.

August 2005 addendum

I've received another report that cites a possibly traceable appearance of the "Knurd" spelling back to 1972 or earlier.

From: "Russell Smith"
Subject: Knurd / nerd
Date: August 14, 2005 2:53:03 PM EDT

Greetings:

This isn't the documentation you asked for, but it's relevant.

I studied EE at Northwestern from 1970 to 1976. In 1972 I had a National Lampoon poster on my wall, titled "Are You a Knurd?" It was a photo of a doofus guy with the salient featires pointed out:
- Oxblood cordovans
- [Briefcase containing] next year's bio project
- Glasses repaired with adhesive tape
- 20/400 [vision]
- Pocket protector
- [Pen] Writes in four colors
- etc.

And the spelling was, definitely, knurd. I challenged classmates to figure it out. "Try -- spelling it backwards!" "Ooooh!" I remember being peeved years later that the movie title changed it.

So, the dismissal of knurd as the origin of nerd is too cavalier.

I Googled the phrase "Are you a knurd?", and got nothing. So, this is an undocumented anecdote.

Best regards,

Russell Smith

I have to disagree a bit with Russell, though. In the Newsweek reference we have solid documentation back to 1951, at least 20 years before his Knurd poster. The Bachelor back cover, takes the Nurd spelling back to 1965, about seven years before the poster. So, his poster his entirely compatible with the notion that the original spelling was "nerd", and that it transformed over the years to "nurd" and finally to "knurd". Still, any bit of the story is valuable and as more evidence shows up, his poster may fit into the story differently.

November 2005 Addendum

I recently received the following speculation, which I report with a certain trepidation, because while imaginative, its hypothesis is spun from whole cloth and not from any evidence. Such notions, when they catch on can easily become the sort of folk etymology that plagues endeavors such as the one central to this page. But in the spirit of open inquiry I present the following:

From: "Mark Largent"
Subject: Nerd Musings...
Date: November 11, 2005 12:16:18 PM EST

Last night, I was reading Gerard Jones' "Men of Tomorrow" about the early origins of comic books and was reading a passage where some relatives of Superman co-creator Jerry Seigel were arguing over how to describe him as a youth. One said "he was a nerd" and the other challenged that, saying he was just quiet and then finally agreeing, but saying "we didn't have that word back then."

It got me to wondering where the word came from. I associated it with the 1950s because I first remember encountering it while watching "Happy Days."

I wondered if I could trace the word to anything and came up with this idea... totally unsubstantiated, but promising enough to make the whole debate on its origins more complicated...

A nerd is another name for a square. A square is cornered... which is pronounced cor-nerd.

Simplified, to be hip and since "square" was so widely used, it's not unbelievable that someone could have used "He's a 'nerd."

It might explain spelling it with an "e" instead of a "u" which would be the case if it were drunk backwards.

Anyway, I had a free moment now and went looking for the origin and stumbled upon your excellent site, and thought I'd send this your way.

Mark Largent

At the very least Mark and Seigel's relatives have a point in noting that in the 30's, when Jerry Seigel was growing up, the word 'nerd' was not in common parlance, though it clearly was in the 70's when "Happy Days" was written, and was growing in use in the 50's as the 1951 and '57 citations make clear.

On the other hand, I don't find the origin all that compelling, not merely because entirely speculative, but because it does not seem to fit the style of 50's slang and neologisms. The middle of the twentieth century, thanks first to jazz and then to the beats, was a time of more poetic slang. It was time when a guy'd go cuisin' for a buisin' and get fed a knuckle sandwich for playin' back seat bingo with another guy's chick. That's not to say that there weren't slang terms that were shortened forms of larger words. A nerd might well have been called a spaz, short for spastic or given to spasms, but shortening to the final syllable just doesn't have a real 50's feel to me.

The slang of my early childhood (I was born between when Gerald McGrew first uttered the term and Newsweek reported hearing it in Detroit) tended to show off, and so you had the rhyming of cruisin' for a bruisin' and the imagery of the knuckle sandwich, and ritualized exchanges of the "see you later, alligator"/"In a while crocodile" sort. Last syllable shortening makes me think of more recent slang ('tard of the last decade or two, and such). Still, anything's possible.

Created: June 14,1995

* The passage from "If I Ran the Zoo" and the picture of the Nerd which accompanies it are both Copyright © 1950, 1978, Theodor Seuss Geisel.