Literally, yes. But “putz” was considered more offensive than “shmuck.” And “putz” was not usually used in speech to mean “penis.” per Rosten.
The Word Mavens say that the most probable explanation is Dr. Suess
Seuss’s illustration shows a small creature looking like a “comically angry Chester A. Arthur” which is nothing like the conventional image involving glasses and pocket protectors. Apparently Seuss had no concept at all of the meaning other use for the word, and it was just a funny sounding syllable among many.
A propos of this, I was wondering why Toby Radloff in American Splendor pronounces it “neerd.” He goes to the movie Revenge of the Nerds where he must have heard the conventional pronunciation several times over, and still comes out saying “neerd.”
For reference, here’s a picture of Seuss’s Nerd.
Compare this to the image of Mortimer Snerd.
Mortimer Snerd reminds me more of Klem Kadiddlehopper. (Does anyone recognize that name?)
Yeah, the Red Skelton character. It’s true that Mortimer, like Klem, was a rube rather than what we think of as a nerd today, but as has been mentioned already, the word has evolved over time. It originally meant, as the citations indicate, “a drip or a square.” Mortimer, though a classic rube, was also a drip.
It seems more likely to me that, whatever its derivation, Ted Geisel picked up a word that was already in circulation and used it in the book (as he did many other existing odd-sounding words, such as seersucker, gasket, and gherkin) rather than coining it himself. I think this is more probable than that a word appearing in a children’s book would be picked up as student slang and become widespread enough to be cited by Newsweek in only a year, especially when there seems to be no connection between the illustration and the original slang usage.
“Nerd”? That’s a Grinch!
What about “schmeckl”, or is that a baby term? That’s what my sister’s two year old has been taught to call it (dad’s Jewish).
My parents and friends got into a discussion about that. It ended with a call to a mother whose native language is Yiddish, and apparentlythe difference is that one is erect, one is not. I can’t remember which was which.
I’m not exactly sure who has a “native language” that is Yiddish.
That explanation seems pretty wrong.
It’s more like saying to your mom, “hey, mom, look at the cock on that guy” and “hey, mom, look at that guy’s dingus.” One is just a little more euphemistically polite, at least when talking to women or a mixed group.
“Dork” is what I remember too from high school back in the early 60’s.
First I heard a lot about the term “Nerd”------was in the movie—“Revenge of the Nerds”------Much, much later.
The first time I remember hearing it in the media was circa 1978 on Saturday Night Live. (I think this because 1978 was the last year I habitually watched television.) Dan Ackroyd played a talk show host in a skit with his usual parody of a hyperactive announcer, jabbing words like weapons.
“Acid Rock. Punk Rock. What next? Nerd Rock!” Then he introduced a new band, The Nerds (including Gilda Radner, as I recall) and their album Desperately Trying to Be Liked. After that the term really caught on nationwide.
The woman in question is a Jew who grew up in Russia. Her first language is Yiddish. Do you think that no one has Yiddish as a first language?
I first remember hearing the word in 1978-1979. There was a poster at Spencer’s Gifts showing a nerd and his various characteristics (looking sorta like Robert Carradine would a few years later). It also looked just like a guy I worked with at the time.
Similarly, the first time I remember seeing the word “geek” was in a comic book in the mid-70s. I believe it was called “Spoof,” and it featured the artwork of Sergio Aragones. In one issue, he showed how to draw and populate the drawing with various types of characters, one of which was “geeks.” But, no context, so I couldn’t tell anything. The next time I heard the word was on an episode of the “Facts of Life” TV program. Some (non-main cast) “in-group” girls was criticizing one of the *main cast who wanted to be a member of the “in” girls. For some reason they had been talking about “geeks,” and looking at this gal, one of them made the comment, “Are there geekettes?”
*Don’t remember which one, but it was a blonde, and not Lisa Whelchel.
IIRC, the way Harlan Ellison explained it:
Schmuck = Dick
Putz = Prick
There is a Yiddish word for “condom” (or so I was told) schmeckeldecker–literally, “penis cover”.
Harlan Ellison also gave some stomach turning insight into the word geek in an essay in his book Stalking the Nightmare, about when he was a kid and ran away to join the carnival, and was stuck in a jail cell overnight with the geek. Ellison’s definition of geek: a wetbrain, i.e. an alcoholic whose brain has become prunewhip yogurt.
His stark conclusion: “I don’t drink. I have never drunk.”
When I got Stalking the Nightmare autographed at Mile High Comics in Boulder, they asked him if he wanted a beer. He asked for Perrier with lime. They apparently hadn’t read the book stacked on their table.
The Mortimer Snerd explanation is somewhat convincing to me, as is “nerts”.
But I’ve had a theory for a while that the word comes from “Brainerd”. In the Disney film The Absent Minded Professor, Fred MacMurray’s Professor Brainerd character displayed some nerd-like characeristics, namely an obsession with scientific formulas to the exclusion of his social life. Now “brain” is a more obvious and longstanding name for a high-achieving student. Perhaps the was briefly embellished to “Brainerd” and then became understood as “brain nerd”, to be shortened to “nerd” much like “pothead” was sortened to “head”. However, since that movie came out in 1960, it pretty much blows my theory out of the water unless “Brainerd” had come into use years earlier from some other source (and then perhaps was borrowed by the writers of the film).
Good grief, all you people who never heard it until the late 70’s or later - didn’t you ever watch Happy Days!?
“The Fonz” even put an album out of 50’s rock n’ roll and a couple of tracks of Fonzie expressions you could imitate until you sounded just like the Fonz! One of the expressions was ‘Nerd’ (pronounced ‘noid’).
Considering that Happy Days was first telecast in 1974, there’s not much difference there.
Given that people claim they first heard the word with the movie “Revenge of the Nerds,” or that the word gained national popularity in 1978, I think the difference is significant. It wasn’t just some obscure slang, it was the biggest word for a poindexter within months of “Happy Days” first broadcasting.