angeni101

Which one you prefer geek or nerd? What these words actually means? Actually, it depends what kind of dictionary you use. Here is some examples.

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English:
geek\geek\ (g=ek), n. 1. A performer in a carnival, often presented as a wild man, who performs grotesguely disgusting acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken or snake.

2. Hence: Any eccentric or strange person; an oddball; an eccentric.

3. An intellectually inclined person, especially one who is interested in scientific or technical subjects; as, a group of geeks wearing pocket protectors;-- originally a deprecatory and contemptuous term, but in the 1990's with the increase in popularity of computers and the frequency of accumulation of great wealth by computer entrepreneurs, it has come to be used with noticeable frequency by technically competent people to refer to themselves, ironically and sometimes proudly.

Wordnet 2.0:
nerd n: an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or studying excessively [syn: swot, grind, wonk, dweep]

Jargon file:
nerd /n./

1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary social rituals. 2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare the two senses of computer geek.

The word itself appears to derive from the lines "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!" in the Dr. Seuss book "If I Ran the Zoo" (1950). (The spellings `nurd' and `gnurd' also used to be current at MIT.) How it developed its mainstream meaning is unclear, but sense 1 seems to have entered mass culture in the early 1970s (there are reports that in the mid-1960s it meant roughly "annoying misfit" without the connotation of intelligence).

An IEEE Spectrum article (4/95, page 16) once derived `nerd' in its variant form `knurd' from the word `drunk' backwards, but this bears all the earmarks of a bogus folk etymology.

Hackers developed sense 2 in self-defense perhaps ten years later, and some actually wear "Nerd Pride" buttons, only half as a joke. At MIT one can find not only buttons but (what else?) pocket protectors bearing the slogan and the MIT seal.

Well these are only examples about two little words. Words which we use determine a group of people. Now some one say:"What a BS! What a waste of time!". Maybe it is, but then you have to consider one thing English isn't my mother tongue. So, this is good way to learn English ;)