NURDS

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Have been reading a few 70s NMEs and noticed that nerd was spelt nurd -was a popular word in their headlines around 1976. I'm just wondering why, presumably they stopped some time or other, well they usually get tired of thrashing a particular word. But yeah, I've never seen it spelt that way elsewhere, and it was several of the writers(though mainly Charles Shaar Murray), so not necessarily someone's personal little idiosyncracy.

― skooldog (skooldogg), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Maybe it was a cross between a nerd and a turd?

― Tom D. (Dada), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:27 (seventeen years ago) link

In "happy days", joanie spelled "Drin" for Potsie to show she thought he was the opposite of a "nird".

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:37 (seventeen years ago) link

in german it's nord (with an umlaut natch)

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:38 (seventeen years ago) link

OK, so who says "nard", it's the only variation left?

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:39 (seventeen years ago) link

They were called nyrds in Chaucer's time

― Tom D. (Dada), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Have been reading a few 70s NMEs and noticed that nerd was spelt nurd

... I'm wondering whether they didn't get spelling this from R. Crumb or Gilbert Shelton or one of those cats

― Tom D. (Dada), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:41 (seventeen years ago) link

this is interesting(well it is to me), had wondered if it was inspired by nigel molesworth's gurls, but I guess not at all. Also, sorry to be a nurd, where did the word come from originally anyway?

― skooldog (skooldogg), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:47 (seventeen years ago) link

They were called nyrds in ~~Chaucer's~~ Roger McGuinn's time

― a bulldog fed a cookie shaped like a kitten (austin), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I thought this thread was about the Roches album.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 February 2007 14:11 (seventeen years ago) link

I just checked, and as I thought, the title of that album was spelled with a "u" also. So I wonder when the standard spelling changed?

― RSLaRue (RSLaRue), Thursday, 15 February 2007 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000002KLO.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
HOTTT

― Matt Cibula (Formerly, the Haikunym), Thursday, 15 February 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost, m grout:

ha ha, I'm glad somebody else remembers that scene...(still, I had remembered her spelling it "d-r-e-n"...I could be wrong)...

― henry s (henry s), Thursday, 15 February 2007 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link

it was definitely "dren": NEVER FORGET

― Matt Cibula (Formerly, the Haikunym), Thursday, 15 February 2007 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link

who remembers the song that Potsie sereneded Joanie with?

― henry s (henry s), Thursday, 15 February 2007 16:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, you're right: "dren" it was! Not that I ever watched every episode of that crappy show back in the late '70s, Tuesday nights at 8:00. Which means that I never mentally converted it into in my mind, since the first spelling I encountered was indeed "nurd" and was, yeah, around '76.

Dunno why the n-e-r-d spelling ultimately won out. I do have an old issue of "Crawdaddy" lying around the apartment somewhere, and in a Bat Out Of Hell review, Ed Naha makes a few references to "nurd rock". That'd probably be one of the last documented uses of the "U" spelling.

― Myonga Von Boring (Monty Von Bygone), Thursday, 15 February 2007 16:51 (seventeen years ago) link

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