At 12:13 AM 7/27/96, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
Timothy C. May wrote:
I just cringe when I meet young programmers at Cypherpunks who mumble "I'm just a computer geek." Fine, I write them off as geeks.
OK, I am a foreigner. Can anyone explain me what the word "geek" means and what are the origins of this word? I thought it was a cool word, meaning someone orthogonal to the present world but being able to change it.
No, "geek" is not a "cool" word. "geek n. Slang. 1. An odd or ridiculous person. 2. A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken. (Perhaps alteration of dialectical "geck," fool, from Low German "gek," from Middle Low German." (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition) And the full Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, Magnifying Glass Version, gives essentially the same definition, and cites an 1875 appearance in American slang. It mentions a "dumb sideshow stooge." Until recently, this was the only usage I knew of. One heard girls pointing at "geeky guys" and saying "What a geek!" Still think it's a "cool" word? How programmers came to adopt this as a badge of pride is beyond me. (I guess they don't especially care what the girls think, especially of course if they're one of the oh-so-popular "Geek Queers"--I don't even want to _think_ about what they bite the heads off of.) That foreigners are arriving in the U.S. and calling themselves "geeks," "dweebs," and "nerds" reminds me of those old cruel ploys of teaching foreigners a few words of English, e.g., "I am a very shitty person, fuck you very much!" Sad, real sad. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."