When I was in middle school my english teacher always told us “do not call each other that, it is a vial and disgusting word!!!” the aforementioned word was none other than dork. Is dork such an awful word or was this a cleaver ploy to get us to use it more often than the profanities flowed from our lips as often as our P’s and Q’s.
Thank you so much
Perplexed in Portland
I have a vague grade school memory of “dork” being one of the many slang words for “penis.” I think that through years of use this meaning has receded into the background, similar to the way saying something “sucks” has become less obscene than it used to be.
“Dork” can mean “dick”. I don’t think most kids use it that way, but they probably would if they were aware of that connotation. There are a lot worse words that mean the same thing, but I still wouldn’t say it at the dinner table in from of Granny.
“Dork” can mean “dick”. I don’t think most kids use it that way, but they probably would if they were aware of that connotation. There are a lot worse words that mean the same thing, but I still wouldn’t say it at the dinner table in front of Granny.
Dork can also mean “idiot with exceptional posting redundancy rate.”
Yeah, I bet she couldn’t hold it back anymore ;
Sorry, that was rude, but I couldn’t contain myself.
The http://www.Dictionary.com definition is
dork n : a dull stupid fatuous person [syn: jerk]
What I remember from Catholic school…a ‘dork’ is a penis and a ‘dork chopper’ is a vagina.
My parents paid tuition so I could remember this many years later…
Technically, a dork is the penis of a whale.
When I was growing up, I wasn’t allowed to say “dork,” “butt,” “sucks,” or “shut-up.” I always thought of these words as belonging to a special category not as bad as real swear words (which were more obviously off-limits). Rather, they were “words you can say in front of Dad but not Mom.”
And I always heard “dork” means “penis.” But that never stopped Mom from using the word “putz.”
a “cleaver” ploy on a bunch of Middle school dorks ?
That’s vile and disgusting !
Ah…but what about Dorcus???
OMG, that site is hilarious!
I can’t wait until he gets up the “Welcome to HELL” section up. All the horror that was the '70’s. That will be sweet.
…um…anybody need a spare “up”? It’s cheap…
Hey, “Dork” can’t be that bad of a word. I saw an anti-drug commercial where a kid is in school and offered drugs. The pusher says "What are you, chicken?’ and the kid says “I’d rather be a chicken than a turkey”. Then a voice over in a cartoonish type voice says “That kid is right. Drug dealers are dorks!” This commercial ran on all the channels in Milwaukee about 5-10 years ago.
Has anyone else seen that commercial?
Maybe it’s a regional thing. I never knew dork meant penis until I saw it used that way in a Stephen King story when I was in my late teens or early twenties. If it helps figure out where and when this is common usage, I lived in Oklahoma from 1972 to 1983 and in Texas ever since.
My first exposure to dork = penis was the scene in Heavy Metal where John Candy gets transported, naked, to that other world. He says “I’m not walking around here with my dork hanging out.”
My family actually had this debate years ago. My sister and I couldn’t understand why this word was added to the bottom of the list right after “turd” and “fart.” Whatever the meaning that my PARENTS got from this word had been lost somewhere between the generations and we thought it was the same as calling someone a “geek.” I believe my sister was actually grounded for uttering this “profanity.”
It’s hilarious for me to find this debate raging here, since we have taken in recent years to taunting my father with this language. Saying these words over and over in front of him and pointing out to him that he can no longer punish us for our language. I’m sending him a link now.
Hi Dad! Fart. Turd. Dork. Crap. Are THOSE the words you don’t want me to say?
HA!!!
-L
It’s a perfectly cromulent word, coming as it does from the Latin, dorkus malorkus.
And the number one definition in the OED is: “The penis.” That’s the entire first definition – it reminded me of the Monty Python sketch “The larch.” The first cite in the OED for this meaning is from 1964:
The first cite for the second definition, “a foolish or stupid person,” is from 1972. I think this meaning is much more common nowadays than the original one.