Geeks: The Meaning Of The Word Geek

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Geek; “an overly diligent, unsociable student; any unsociable person obsessively devoted to a particular pursuit” (Oxford English dictionary). In today’s dictionary the word geek can have both a positive, as well as a negative definition, neither of which is related to its original meaning. People have the tendency to alter these words and their connotation to accommodate their verbal slang. While many believe they have a clear understanding of the word geek, they lack the comprehension of its root and true meaning, as well as their mode of application.
The word geek is thought to be derived originally from the term “geck,” part of the native language Low German used in most of Northern Germany, similar to Dutch. The first recorded usage of …show more content…

In 1935, Amer. Mercury describes geek as “a degenerate who bites off the heads of chickens in a gory cannibal show” (Oxford English Dictionary). The circus culture was built on the unusually rare. “Geeks” at carnivals were people who were not considered part of the community. While they managed to grasp people’s attention performing unnatural stunts, the cost of their actions put them apart from the normal. “Geek” during this time frame was used to describe someone who was strange, …show more content…

Suddenly the “geeks” were the financially successful, the Bill Gates of the community; reinventing newer gadgets every day. Thanks to our new computerized embedded culture, “geeks” took more pride in the word and altered its usage. In 2001, the London newspaper The Independent published in their writing, “We're the nerds, the geeks, the dweebs: the men and women who can spend 20 hours straight contemplating 600 bytes of obscure, arcane, impenetrable computer code.” The term was no longer a word used to belittle others; now it was the word people used to describe

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