PolicyGuy

Wednesday, September 20, 2006


Something else to blame Dr. Seuss For.
The creator of the nerd, or at least the word "nerd," may have been Dr. Seuss.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary describes nerd the origins of the word this way: "perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)."

By contrast, the etymology of the subspecies of nerd called wonk is listed as "unknown."

Geek, by contrast, has what many people might consider a less desirable origin: "probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German."

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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