I have always been for more comfortable being a geek than a nerd. I don’t know why. I have often referred to myself at work as the resident geek – fixing technology and having people come up to me on a daily basis to “just come and have a look at this” has become an irritating but essential part of my work life.
This graph may help. Unfortunately it is from the Mail Online:
They say:
The most nerdy subjects revolved around the words ‘cellist’, ‘neuroscience’, ‘goths’ and ‘gamer.’
On the geekier end of the scale, words included ‘culture’, ‘shiny’ ‘trendy’ and ‘webcomic’.
Settles said geeky words are ‘more about stuff, while nerdy words are more about ideas.’
‘Geeks are fans, and fans collect stuff; nerds are practitioners, and practitioners play with ideas.’
In general terms, Settles found that words such as computers and big data fall in between the two, along the diagonal.
Geeky people were shown as more interested in brands, such as Apple, and technologies such as Linux.
In terms of hobbies, more geeky pastimes related to toys and Japanese comics, such as manga, while nerdy hobbies were shown to be chess and sudoku.
Where do you think I lie – I would say I’m somewhere between nerd and geek… I’ll stick with geek.
[Graph and quote via Mail Online]
