Magazine Are 'geek' and 'nerd' now positive terms? By Kathryn Westcott BBC News Magazine -- Campaigners in Sweden are trying to force a dictionary to change its definition of "nerd". But after two decades of "reappropriation" has "nerd" - and its sister word "geek" - now completely lost its derogatory connotations? -- The Social Network in 2010 came in a very different social milieu. Now a nerd, or a "geek", can be a driven Machiavellian bent on success - Gordon Gekko in a zip-up hoodie. Today when people think of "geeks" and "nerds" they might very well name the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg - people whose imagination and grasp of the technical made them billions. Historic geeks are celebrated, with Alan Turing and Nikola Tesla's legacies provoking great passions. New York Times blogger and geeky statistician Nate Silver has been hailed as an unexpected star of the US presidential election after correctly predicting the outcome. "Memo to wannabe presidents: hire geeks, not pundits," advises this week's New Scientist magazine. -- Singles on dating websites define themselves in their profiles as "nerds" and "geeks" - in a positive way - and there is no end of blogs listing stars like Natalie Portman as geeks or listing "nerdy power couples" (like Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter). A slew of comedies over the past few years have had geeks as heroes, such as Tim Bisley - the comics, video game and Star Wars-obsessive of Spaced - and Sheldon Cooper, the precocious physicist of The Big Bang -- In Skyfall, Bond's gadget guru Q has evolved into a slick computer geek. There's been a long period of "reappropriation" of the words "geek" and "nerd". -- to register a neutral sense." The word "geek" is older, starting out in the early 1900s to refer to a carnival performer (see box) whose only skill was the ability to bite the heads off chickens. It's easy to argue that "nerd" and "geek", with their very different roots, retain different meanings, arguably with the former still more derogatory than the latter. And some see a transatlantic divide, with "geek" used in US and UK, but "nerd" somehow feeling less British. Stamper argues "nerd" now denotes a depth of knowledge in a particular area, while "geek" appears to have taken on the more technical overtones that "nerd" once had. "We have evidence of people particularly taking the word 'geek' and using it proudly to reclaim the best elements," says Stamper. -- many gay people have altered the meaning of the word "queer". Geeks The OED suggests the term may have originated in the north of England. In the US, "geek" was first used in the early 1900s to refer to a carnival performer. At roughly the same time, it became a general synonym of "fool". By the 1950s, "geek" started referring to a person who was unsociable and freakishly devoted to something, usually intellectual. By the late 1950s, the "intellectual" connotation had solidified, and we gained the -- Source: Kory Stamper, Merriam-Webster, and OED The classic current use of "geek" as a self-description is typically accompanied by something else - "stats geek", "physics geek", "history geek" and even "cocktail geek" all being standard usages. Some lexicographers have been slow to reflect the new status of "nerd" and "geek". In Sweden, an online petition to change the dictionary definition of -- people sitting in front of their computers were cool - for Time Out in the mid-to-late 1980s," says Gaiman. "Gibson described himself as the geek who couldn't play baseball. Someone at Time Out changed this to 'Greek' because they said they hadn't come across the word. -- teens were more than making money, they were changing the world." Surely the apotheosis for those dubbed "geek" came with world wide web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee being cheered at the London 2012 opening ceremony. -- So as more and more people become enthusiasts, traditional "nerd" and "geek" interests - Star Trek, comic books, anime, video games - are moving into the mainstream. The record for biggest US movie opening weekend is held by a movie based on comics. -- But has anything been lost by this shift? Some of those who self-identify as nerds and geeks look back nostalgically on the time their status felt rebellious, says Benjamin Nugent, author of American Nerd: The Story of My People. "This didn't -- But the hardcore take to forums like Reddit to deride those who think they are nerds and geeks but are perceived as lacking the right credentials. -- the word." With the words "geek" and "nerd" primarily self-descriptions now, says blogger and game designer JR Blackwell, there are many different interpretations.