Nerd: Not a Four-Letter Word

What's in a word?

My (Millennial) friend affectionately referred to one of his (Gen Z) youths at church as a “nerd.” This assignation was an accurate one; the youth in question is a member of many-a-fandom, most of them Japanese in origin. She’s intelligent, somewhat socially awkward, and extremely passionate about her interests. She’s… you know. A nerd.

The youth’s (Boomer) grandmother heard my friend use the term in regards to her granddaughter, and she was aghast. Agag. Agoggle. She leapt to the youth’s defense, and she felt hurt hearing this word used against her loved one. When my friend tried to explain that “nerd” wasn’t a bad thing, that he himself is a massive nerd, she wouldn’t hear it.

To her, this was a purely pejorative word. A word used to denigrate. It was the word of a bully. And indeed, that is how that word has been used! It has even been used as an insult against myself (shocking, I’m sure).

But when I got called a “nerd” in school for doing well in my classes and for liking things like videogames, D&D, comics, Godzilla, animals, music, theatre, musical theatre (there’s a difference), and whatever else, the word hurt because my bullies said it to hurt me. But it wasn’t really the word that hurt me; it was the intent to do harm.

The word itself, though? It was true.

All “nerd” means is “passionate and knowledgeable in a certain area.” If someone is “such a nerd,” then chances are good that the person in question is a nerd in several different areas. For most of us, it’s an absolutely fair descriptor. And I don’t mean “most of us who got called that.” I mean most of humanity.

Do you want to know who some of the biggest nerds in the world are? Sports fans. Those people put videogame nerds to shame with the depths of their nerdiness. They know names, dates, stats, and entire rulebooks. For goodness sakes, they even cosplay to support their favorite teams and players. How much nerdier can you get? And yet some of those very same people were the ones slinging around the epithet to try to bash the uncool kids.

So it was that I eventually stopped feeling slighted by a word that was actually an apt adjective. In fact, I started using it myself. I am such a nerd about all those things from my youth and many more.

My friend explained all of this to the well-meaning grandmother, and I can’t say for certain how she feels about it at this point. But seeing her granddaughter beam with pride when a grown-up nerd acknowledged her adolescent nerdiness may have softened her stance. After all, that grandmother herself is such a nerd about things like Jesus, crochet, the church choir, and her own grandchildren.

So keep on keepin’ on, you nerds. Be passionate. Be excited. Be a nerd.

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