"So, what does the word 'nerd' mean to you?"
"It's a bad thing."
"What? Why's that?"
"Because nerds are people who get bullied. It's a thing you would call someone if you were going to be mean to them."
"But what if I like being a nerd? What if my friends and I think it's cool to have a lot of interests and be really smart and not be ashamed of that?"
"Older people maybe think it's like that, but it's not that way now with younger people."
"Okay, but if I decide I want it to be a good word, why can't I have it be that way? Like, nerds are good! Where my nerds at? I like nerds! I wou..."
"No Mom, it really doesn't mean that."
"Okay, it bothers me if the word means something about being bullied."
"Yeah."
"So what can I call it when someone has, well, nerdy interests? What if I'm really interested in math and science and space and history and ideas and I like to imagine stories about things like that?"
"That's just called being intelligent."
"OK, close enough."
Note: we had further discussion of this issue but that's the salient point for now.Statistics: Posted by Phoebe — Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:30 pm
]]>