I am so PO'd at you, "Chucky"

[Bosstone]

@Miller

I suspect the jocks would disagree with you on that point, but what I meant by linking to that movie was to provide an example of popular usage of “nerd” to mean, “academically gifted, but socially maladapted.”

Like I said. Nerds don’t have social skills.

I’d submit that Revenge of the Nerds has as little relevance on how the words are used today as the carnies do, really. RotN was created back when technology wasn’t nearly as prevalent and the jock/nerd dynamic was far more pronounced than it currently is.

I’d submit that, but at this point I’m simply talking up assertions, hijacking this thread far too much, and running late for an appointment. I’ll just say that my personal definition is not inconsistent with the context in which I’ve seen the words geek and nerd and leave it at that.

[RedFury]

@tdn

sigh What part of “A +2 vorpal blade of troll slaying” don’t you understand?

Go “A +2 vorpal” your Momma just in case. Meanwhile I’d have no problem slaying a troll with a blade. Or maybe I would, I mean why would I want to do that? Don’t even know the freaking troll.

---

Miller,

No, dude, not what I meant. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough. I was questioning my own mental deficiencies…or rather certain decline…not yours!

[Justin_Bailey]

@Bosstone

Out of curiosity, because I intended to start a poll in IMHO on this, I found that one already existed; those people in that thread who think a nerd is better than a geek rely on the historical meaning as well, but the majority who responded (a small sample in total, I grant) prefer geek over nerd.

I think you should start a new poll anyway. That one is over three years old and I imagine “geek” has quite a bit more traction nowadays over the (in my opinion) unpreferred nerd.

I’d also like to second the belief that the gulf between jocks and geeks is fading all the time. My roommate in college was ridiculously ripped, played a lot of sports, drank with the best of them and had a pretty steady girlfriend for most of junior year.

He also would spend his free time writing a computer program that tracked your nutiritional needs, learning new programming languages, playing Elder Scrolls III and watching fansubbed anime. He also had dreadful luck with the ladies after he and his girlfriend broke up (although his best friend was one of the hottest women that I had ever seen, but they were just friends).

[smiling_bandit]

@D_Odds

Don’t take this as a knock on it - I was a player, and if I had time I still might play. I enjoyed it. Never got as worked up as smiling or Chucky, though.

Heh.

I’ve just noticed that fandoms - and by that I mean pretty much any fandom - overestimate the popularity their own pastime. I was as guilty as any (I’ve learned), whether it be RPGs, popular SciFi books, comics, anime, pro wrestling, or whatever.

While I’ve been doing this for years, I note that the release of DnD 3 back in 200 was a very big deal. Wizards of the Coast sold books like hotcakes.

[Miller]

@Bosstone

Like I said. Nerds don’t have social skills.

Sure. But neither do geeks, as a rule.

I’d submit that Revenge of the Nerds has as little relevance on how the words are used today as the carnies do, really. RotN was created back when technology wasn’t nearly as prevalent and the jock/nerd dynamic was far more pronounced than it currently is.

We’re talking about the 1980s, here, not the 1580s. Technology was pretty prevalent, even back then. In fact, aside from the personal computer, I can’t think of any high tech items we have today, that the average middle-class family in the '80s wouldn’t have also had, at least in some analogous form.

[Dag_Otto]

@Bosstone

Out of curiosity, because I intended to start a poll in IMHO on this, I found that one already existed; those people in that thread who think a nerd is better than a geek rely on the historical meaning as well, but the majority who responded (a small sample in total, I grant) prefer geek over nerd.

I’ll repeat** ouisey’s ** question from that thread. Where does Dork fit in all this?

[Miller]

@Dag Otto

I’ll repeat** ouisey’s ** question from that thread. Where does Dork fit in all this?

That’d be someone with no social skills, who doesn’t know shit.

[RedFury]

Say, what’s up with dweebs? Sort of cruel leaving them out.

[Hostile_Dialect]

@xnylder

Oh, and tdn, they’re more like D20s. And they’re natural.

Critical hit!

@D_Odds

It would be better to say that the popularity peaked at that time.

But don’t you think it’s fair to say that most people who were older than, say, 14 in the 80s have encountered D&D at some point?

@RedFury

and if I did, I must have thought it was a book

It is. Quite a lot of them, actually–entire genres of pulp fantasy fiction are based on the D&D universe–but the game itself, well, you can call it a “book game” just as much as Monopoly is a “board game”. So I’d say you were spot on, even if you missed the point a little.

[Bosstone]

@Miller

We’re talking about the 1980s, here, not the 1580s. Technology was pretty prevalent, even back then. In fact, aside from the personal computer, I can’t think of any high tech items we have today, that the average middle-class family in the '80s wouldn’t have also had, at least in some analogous form.

That’s a pretty big aside, though, you must admit. Technology that was geeky/nerdy in the 80s wasn’t really mainstream until the personal computer became cheap enough for most families to own, the internet became readily accessible, and circuitry could be miniaturized to the point where cell phones weren’t the size of a brick and could do far more than simply call someone and where PDAs weren’t actual appointment books.

These days everyone is so immersed in technology that someone who works on computers is roughly equivalent to someone who works on cars. The jocks have seen what geeks and nerds are capable of, and it is good.

[smiling_bandit]

Heeee’s Baaaaaa-aaaaack!

I’ve been avoiding him but some of the other people hauled him along for some godawful reason. Note that I haven’t gone to the Wednesday game (where he can attend) and only to the Satuirday game (a long from Chucky “He Who Has No Car”). Since I didn’t know he was coming, I couldn’t avoid it.

but OK, fine. I settle down and deal with it. No sense leaving the minute I get in.

Disaster. He’s got a new character, which he didn’t build himself, just like he didn’t do any of the other ones he’s ever played. He plays the character like a raving maniac:

Scene One: He wants to know what’s inside a suspicious box.

Chucky: Let me see what’s in that box!

Guys: Who wants to know about it?

Chucky: I do! I’m the King’s right hand chick! He ordered me and my clan to discover all about the underworld and rule over it! (Note, aside from everybody having a different mandate, he just blabbed in public what was at the very least a semi-secret and rather unpleasant truth which could get him killed.)

Guys: :dubious: (Thinking he’s nuts) Yeah… So what? It’s not your turf anyway.

Chucky: But you might be smuggling so I have to check!

Guys: Ah, we’re taking a chest aboard our little racing yacht to go twenty miles north… on the same island… in broad daylight… during a race. And on whose authority do you claim this right, biatch?

Chucky: I’m the harbormaster!

Guys: No you’re not. Your in the wrong dress, the wrong sex, the wrong damned ethnicity (more or less), and he’s standing fifty feet over there! Yo! Harbor-dude! Over here!

Harbor-dude: Wassup?

Guys: This crazy girl claims she’s you.

Chucky: “Utters some incomprehensible BS along with a hideous direct insult at everybody in range.”

Harbor-dude: I’m going to kill you now. Would you like slow and painful or quick?

Chucky: Well, you challenged me so I get to choose a weapon, and rather than choose an honorable sword or whatnot, I choose knives.

Harbor-dude: OK. I still kill you biatch. Stab What part of high-ranking administrator didn’t you get?

The rest of us: Look, dimwit, accept that you lost, make an apology, and say you were temporarily insane!

Chucky: “argue argue”

Harbor-dude: Stab Well, look at those intestines.

Chucky: Alright, I make my etiquette check! Fine! I run far away and hide on the far side of the island for no particular reason.

The rest of us: Whatever. :rolleyes:
Later on, he brutally attacked some guards and declared that a fair fight was one where he snuck up and murdered people without them being able to fight back. He also got captured, beaten, and tricked into agreeing with absenting himself for the next 30 years or more.

After that, I got mildly annoyed at him wasting about half the night and clubbed him over the head, incidentally stopping him from declaring loudly how he was a spy and a sneak and trying to sell everyone’s secrets. He was mortally angry at that. I tried further to present myself as a rival, which infuriated him. :rolleyes:

Later on, he had another meltdown and destroyed another character sheet. We then spent another hour trying to tell him to stop being a dumbass. he declared his hatred for me and “how [Smiling Bandit] was always trying to drive [Chucky] away!” :rolleyes: Yeah, that’s why I’ve offered to lend you my books, drive you around now and then, help you look for a job, save your character twice this session alone. And yes, your case that I was picking on you got a little better when the girl who brought you down noted that you had been laughing about how you were better at Sneaking and Athletics than my character, along with your ludicrous combat style. Yeah, I’m such a bad dude.

Y’know what? I am a little smug. It’s hard not to be when a retarded monkey what’s to play.

[Idlewild]

I used to keep this handy guide to nerds, dorks and geeks pinned up in my cubicle at work, but mostly the huge LotR poster lets everyone know everything they need to about my level of social ineptitude.

[smiling_bandit]

@smiling bandit

After that, I got mildly annoyed at him wasting about half the night and clubbed him over the head, incidentally stopping him from declaring loudly how he was a spy and a sneak and trying to sell everyone’s secrets. He was mortally angry at that. I tried further to present myself as a rival, which infuriated him. :rolleyes:

Cough That should read: “clubbed his character over the head” Cough