Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Wednesday 2 September 2015

My linguistic curiosity

led me (who thought I was a wuss)
to wonder about the difference
between a dweeb and a dork.
I find that the latter Americanism
describes someone like me:
'who has odd interests, and is often silly at times'.
Also 'someone who can be themselves 
and not care what anyone thinks'.
A dweeb, on the other hand, is
'an unattractive, insignificant person
who is boring, nerdish and socially inept'. 
This I surely cannot be yclept.

1 comment:

Marcus Billson said...

Careful, my friend. These words are used primarily by American Anglo--as in white of whatever European origin--high schoolers, not by other ethnicities, Latinos, Asians, or African Americans to target "out of it" white males. Dweeb is usually subsumed in dork, even though as you suggest they are different--remember Americans go for the simple--both are geeky outsiders--that being the main point of the designation, awkward, impossible to associate with, as in incriminating with some loathsome disease; dork and dweeb are never a wuss, who is anyone, even a star athlete with a ripped body, who doesn't step up to the plate and openly displays hesitation from anxiety or fear. These words are grounded in an American high school culture, ridiculed, exploited, never seriously treated by Hollywood as it really is--pernicious and life-destroying--mercifully for all Europeans beyond their experience, and mercifully at my age and with my prior high school experience beyond mine.