Who s a Nerd, Anyway?

　　What is a nerd? Mary Bucholtz, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been working on the question for the last 12 years. She has gone to high schools and colleges, mainly in California, and asked students from different crowds to think about the idea of nerdiness and who among their peers should be considered a nerd; students have also reported themselves. Nerdiness, she has conducted, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, hyperwhite .

　　While the word nerd has been used since the 1950s, its origin remains elusive. Nerds, however, are easy to find everywhere. Being a nerd has become a widely accepted and even proud identity, and nerds have carved out a comfortable niche in popular culture; nerdcore rappers, who wear pocket protectors and write paeans to computer routing devices，are in vogue, and TV networks continue to run shows with titles like Beauty and the Geek . As a linguist, Bucholtz understands nerdiness first and foremost as a way of using language. In a 2001 paper, The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness , and other works, including a book in progress, Bucholtz notes that the hegemonic cool white kids use a limited amount of African-American vernacular English; they may say blood in lieu of friend, or drop the g in playing.

　　But the nerds she has interviewed, mostly white kids, punctiliously adhere to Standard English. They often favor Greco-Latinate words over Germanic ones ，a preference that lends an air of scientific detachment. They re aware they speak distinctively and they use language as a badge of membership in their cliques. One nerd girl Bucholtz observed performed a typically nerdy feat when asked to discuss blood as a slang term; she replied: B-I-O-O-D. The word is blood, evoking the format of a spelling bee. She went on, That s the stuff which is inside of your veins, humorously using a literal definition Nerds are not simply victims of the prevailing social codes about what s appropriate and what s cool; they actively shape their own identities and put those codes in question.

　　Though Bucholtz uses the term hyperwhite to describe nerd language in particular, she claims that the symbolic resources of an extreme whiteness can be used elsewhere. After all, trends in music, dance, fashion, sports and language in a variety of youth subcultures are often traceable to an African-American source, but unlike the styles of cool European American students, in nerdiness, African-American culture and language do not play even a covert role. Certainly, hyperwhite seems a good word for the sartorial choices of paradigmatic nerds. While a stereotypical black youth, from the zoot-suit era through the bling years, wears flashy clothes, chosen for their aesthetic value, nerdy clothing is purely practical: pocket protectors, belt sheaths for gadgets, short shorts for excessive heat, etc. Indeed, hyperwhite works as a description for nearly everything we intuitively associate with nerds, which is why Hollywood has long traded in jokes that try to capitalize on the emotional dissonance of nerds acting black and black people being nerds.

　　By cultivating an identity perceived as white to the point of excess, nerds deny themselves the aura of normality that is usually one of the perks of being white. Bucholtz sees something to admire here. In declining to appropriate African-American youth culture, thereby refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded, she writes, nerds may even be viewed as traitors to whiteness. You might say they know that a culture based on theft is a culture not worth having. On the other hand, the code of conspicuous intellectualism in the nerd cliques Bucholtz observed may shut out black students who chose not to openly display their abilities. This is especially disturbing at a time when African-American students can be stigmatized by other African-American students if they re too obviously diligent about school .Even more problematic, Nerds dismissal of black cultural practices often led them to discount the possibility of friendship with black students, even if the nerds were involved in political activities like protesting against the dismantling of affirmative action in California schools. If nerdiness, as Bucholtz suggests, can be a rebellion against the cool white kids and their use of black culture, its a rebellion with a limited membership.

　　Who s a Nerd, Anyway?

　　What is a nerd? Mary Bucholtz, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been working on the question for the last 12 years. She has gone to high schools and colleges, mainly in California, and asked students from different crowds to think about the idea of nerdiness and who among their peers should be considered a nerd; students have also reported themselves. Nerdiness, she has conducted, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, hyperwhite .

　　While the word nerd has been used since the 1950s, its origin remains elusive. Nerds, however, are easy to find everywhere. Being a nerd has become a widely accepted and even proud identity, and nerds have carved out a comfortable niche in popular culture; nerdcore rappers, who wear pocket protectors and write paeans to computer routing devices，are in vogue, and TV networks continue to run shows with titles like Beauty and the Geek . As a linguist, Bucholtz understands nerdiness first and foremost as a way of using language. In a 2001 paper, The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness , and other works, including a book in progress, Bucholtz notes that the hegemonic cool white kids use a limited amount of African-American vernacular English; they may say blood in lieu of friend, or drop the g in playing.

　　But the nerds she has interviewed, mostly white kids, punctiliously adhere to Standard English. They often favor Greco-Latinate words over Germanic ones ，a preference that lends an air of scientific detachment. They re aware they speak distinctively and they use language as a badge of membership in their cliques. One nerd girl Bucholtz observed performed a typically nerdy feat when asked to discuss blood as a slang term; she replied: B-I-O-O-D. The word is blood, evoking the format of a spelling bee. She went on, That s the stuff which is inside of your veins, humorously using a literal definition Nerds are not simply victims of the prevailing social codes about what s appropriate and what s cool; they actively shape their own identities and put those codes in question.

　　Though Bucholtz uses the term hyperwhite to describe nerd language in particular, she claims that the symbolic resources of an extreme whiteness can be used elsewhere. After all, trends in music, dance, fashion, sports and language in a variety of youth subcultures are often traceable to an African-American source, but unlike the styles of cool European American students, in nerdiness, African-American culture and language do not play even a covert role. Certainly, hyperwhite seems a good word for the sartorial choices of paradigmatic nerds. While a stereotypical black youth, from the zoot-suit era through the bling years, wears flashy clothes, chosen for their aesthetic value, nerdy clothing is purely practical: pocket protectors, belt sheaths for gadgets, short shorts for excessive heat, etc. Indeed, hyperwhite works as a description for nearly everything we intuitively associate with nerds, which is why Hollywood has long traded in jokes that try to capitalize on the emotional dissonance of nerds acting black and black people being nerds.

　　By cultivating an identity perceived as white to the point of excess, nerds deny themselves the aura of normality that is usually one of the perks of being white. Bucholtz sees something to admire here. In declining to appropriate African-American youth culture, thereby refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded, she writes, nerds may even be viewed as traitors to whiteness. You might say they know that a culture based on theft is a culture not worth having. On the other hand, the code of conspicuous intellectualism in the nerd cliques Bucholtz observed may shut out black students who chose not to openly display their abilities. This is especially disturbing at a time when African-American students can be stigmatized by other African-American students if they re too obviously diligent about school .Even more problematic, Nerds dismissal of black cultural practices often led them to discount the possibility of friendship with black students, even if the nerds were involved in political activities like protesting against the dismantling of affirmative action in California schools. If nerdiness, as Bucholtz suggests, can be a rebellion against the cool white kids and their use of black culture, its a rebellion with a limited membership.