Knurds!

In one of my classes, today, we got into a discussion about the word "nerd," after having read an essay by Grant Penrod called "Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate Smart Kids." In the piece, the writer claims that we, as a culture, don't respect the average intellectual and that we glorify ignorance.

We did a little quick linguistic research via smart phone and discovered that the word "nerd"  first appeared in print in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo, in 1950. There are many arguments as to the word's origins before that, though, and various college campuses and neighborhoods claim it as their own creation (there is even one theory that it came from spelling "drunk" backward, to signify someone who studies on Saturday nights instead of going to parties: "knurd."

Most people seem to agree that it was popularized by the sit-com Happy Days, as uttered repeatedly by "The Fonz."