Geek or nerd?

The description I have given this blog in an attempt to succinctly sum myself up is;

“The blog of Andy Strange; lutonian, liberal activist and occasional geek.”

The first two descriptive terms are understandable and accurate. But what of the third? I confess to having a moment of doubt. Am I really an occasional geek? Perhaps I am actually an occasional nerd? What is the difference between the two?

I consulted the internet in order to help me to define my terms.

Unsurprisingly the internet disagreed with itself. However, it did seem to agree that both terms are associated with people of high intelligence who have an intense interest and knowledge of a particular subject or field of study. It also agreed that this was accompanied with a lack of social skills. Please note that I qualify each term with ‘occasional’ when applying them to myself.

However, it does seem that the term ‘geek’ is more often associated with an interest and knowledge of technology, especially computer technology. Which is what I was intending to convey.

So that’s all right then.

I did rather like the definition of ‘geek’ given by the Urban Dictionary;

“The people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult.”

Also I have learnt that, whether you are a geek or a nerd, the key things is not to be a ‘dork’!

This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.