"Are you a nerd? If you feel unsure, here’s a handy diagnostic"
First, she should have numbered the questions. Second, it can’t be a “test” unless there are at least 5 questions, and third, she should have included:
5. You think this “test” is far, far too short to properly adjust for pycho-social anomolies [people who just get in a nerdy mood once in a while]
About the link… it was showing the full article a few minutes ago.. .now, alas, it doesn’t seem to be.
Here’s an excerpt…
- Do you work with and enjoy machines more than the average Joe?
- If you had written the previous sentence, would you replace the word “Joe” with “human” because you forgo idiom in favor of Standard English?
- Do you wear high-water pants and indestructible eyeglasses?
- Do you escape the pain and disorder of your real life by slipping into fantasy worlds such as video games or Tolkien’s Middle Earth?
The post is a review of American Nerd: The Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent (Scribner, 2008).
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
It strikes me that working with machines is a sign of being male and mechanically adept, not necessarily being a nerd. Witness all those old Valvoline commercials where they say “you’re born, you die, in between, you work on cars” and that sort of thing. To be a true nerd (guilty), you’ve really got to get really comfortable working with abstract ideas, concepts, and realities that make everyone else’s eyes glaze over. Going into the abstract, you then sometimes lose contact with the realities that others follow.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
True. Another item might be…
6. People often stop listening to you 30 seconds into your answer to their question (but if you’re really, really a nerd, you are unaware of this) :-)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer]True. Another item might be…
6. People often stop listening to you 30 seconds into your answer to their question (but if you’re really, really a nerd, you are unaware of this)
What was that you were saying?
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
If you’ve paid any attention to pop culture lately, then you know that the quiz should include these questions:
How many times have you watched “The Avengers”?
Do you know who “The Evil League of Evil” is?
Have you ever referred to yourself as a ‘browncoat’?
There are definitely different kinds of nerds…
- comic book/comic-book movie nerds
- mechanical/automotive nerds
- software nerds
- immersive gameplay nerds
- theology nerds?
- grammar nerds
and my favorite…
- nerd-classification nerds
(maybe I should add conservative culture nerds)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
That’s definitely true. The last time a nerd could be described as simply a guy in “high-water pants and indestructible eyeglasses” was The Breakfast Club.
I consider myself a book nerd, but I’m also a bit of a pop culture nerd. I’m not always ‘into’ stuff, but I do like to know what moves our culture in different directions, and that is often found in the entertainment industry. It’s interesting though, that the entertainment industry and tech/information industry have meshed so much in the last couple of decades.
Thanks for this thread. I just reserved the book at the library. It looks to be, as Spock would say, fascinating.
I just Googled “Spock” to make sure I was using the right word that he would say, and I found a news report that Leonard Nimoy passed away this morning. SciFi nerds everywhere are feeling sad.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/27/entertainment/feat-obit-leonard-nimoy-spo…
Browncoats forever!
Missionary in Brazil, author of "The Astonishing Adventures of Missionary Max" Online at: http://www.comingstobrazil.com http://cadernoteologico.wordpress.com
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