The words
"nerd" and "geek" are often used interchangeably, as if
they mean the same thing. They actually don't:
geek - An enthusiast of a particular topic or field.
Geeks are “collection” oriented, gathering facts and mementos related to their
subject of interest. They are obsessed with the newest, coolest, trendiest
things that their subject has to offer.
nerd - A studious intellectual, although again of a
particular topic or field. Nerds are “achievement” oriented, and focus their
efforts on acquiring knowledge and skill over trivia and memorabilia.
"Both
are dedicated to their subjects, and sometimes socially awkward. The
distinction is that geeks are fans of their subjects, and nerds are
practitioners of them."
A computer
geek might read Wired (https://www.wired.com/)
and tap the Silicon Valley rumor-mill for leads on the next hot-new-thing,
while a computer nerd might read CLRS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms)
and keep an eye out for clever new ways of applying Dijkstra’s algorithm. Note
that, while not synonyms, they are not necessarily distinct either: many geeks
are also nerds (and vice versa).
Examples of
geeky vocabulary: "collection,”
“collectables”, “boxset” “original,”
"toys,” “manga”,
“intelligence”, “ebooks”,
“ibooks”, “shiny”, “trendy”.
Examples of nerdy vocabulary: “math”, “history,”
“physics,” “biology,” “neuroscience,” “biochemistry,” “thesis”, “harvard”,
“oxford", “chess,” “sudoku”, “education,” “intellectual,”
“smartypants", “books”, “cellist”.
Or, as Slackpropagation puts it, "Both are dedicated to their subjects, and sometimes socially awkward. The distinction is that geeks are fans of their subjects, and nerds are practitioners of them." In order to clarify those differences, he made this map. You can click here for a larger image of it.
Using that
distinction, he poured over 2.6 million Tweets using both the streaming and
search APIs for over a one month period. After crunching the numbers to figure
out each word's PMI (pointwise mutual information), he got a pretty good
predictor of the semantic word similarities between "geek" and
"nerd." There were more than he expected, as you can see from the
map.
Orange
words are geeky. Blue ones are nerdy. The words on the vertical axis become
more geeky as you go up, and the words on the horizontal axis become more nerdy
as you move right. Slackpropagation continues: "Words along the diagonal
are similarly geeky and nerdy, including social (“#awkward”, “weirdo”),
mainstream tech (“#computers”, “#microsoft”), and sci-fi/fantasy terms
(“doctorwho,” “#thehobbit”)." Other observations from the data include:
Collections
are geeky: All derivatives of the word “collect” (“collection,” “collectables”,
etc.) are orange. As are “boxset” and “#original,” which imply a taste for
completeness and authenticity.
Academic
fields are nerdy: “math”, “#history,” “physics,” “biology,” “neuroscience,”
“biochemistry,” etc. Other academic words (“thesis”, “#studymode”) and
institutions (“harvard”, “oxford”) are also blue.
The science
& technology words differ: General terms (“#computers,” “#bigdata”) are on
the diagonal — similarly geeky and nerdy. As you splay up toward more geeky,
though, you see products, startups, brands, and more cultish technologies
(“#apple”, “#linux”). As you splay down toward more nerdy you see more
methodologies (“calculus”).
Hobbies:
compare the more geeky pastimes (“#toys,” “#manga”) with the more nerdy ones
(“chess,” “sudoku”).
Brains: the
word “intelligence” may be geeky, but “education,” “intellectual,” and
“#smartypants” are nerdy.
Reading:
“#books” are nerdy, but “ebooks” and “ibooks” are geeky.
Pop culture
vs. high culture: “#shiny” and “#trendy” are super-geeky, but (curiously)
“cellist” is the nerdiest…
All
observations quoted from Slackpropagation.
If the map
isn't helpful to you, or you'd like another perspective, check out this
infographic from Diego Martinez-Moncada at Daily Infographic. The dataset is
different from Slackpropagation's, but it comes from the same 2012 time period
- and draws the same conclusions:
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