The first time I ever heard the word “nerd” was on the old 70’s TV show Happy Days. In fact, for a while, that was the big catch word on the show. Anyone who was uncool (usually Potsie) was called a “nerd”. Also, some graffiti using the word “nerd” was shown as during the show’s credits for a while.
Since I never heard the word before that, I’m wondering if it was invented by the show’s writers. Does anyone know?
According to the OED:
The quotation from 1950 that they are referring to is from Dr. Seuss’s book If I Ran the Zoo.
Their first citation for nerd meaning “square” is from 1957. This if from the Glasgow Sunday Mail in what appears to be a definition of nerd as a slang term, so it was a 1950s word.
The nerd-“Happy Days” connection was also recently discussed here.
OEd is weird, this is better:
nerd "nerd\ noun [perh. fr. nerd, a creature in the children’s book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)] (1951)
: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; esp : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits <computer nerds>
nerd•ish "ner-dish\ adjective
nerdy -de\ adjective
©1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
I’ve always assumed that it was popularized by the recurring sketch on certain early Saturday Night Live shows in which various actors, particularly Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, played nerdish characters who were called “nerds.”