Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for January 16, 2013

Ah, if only RL came with optimized ignore lists.

If Phoebe’s a nerd at school according to Dakota, then what does Dakota consider herself to be therein? Nerd & genius are completely different.

Not enough rage.

In other words almost a year ago nothings changed…well except things did get better once Phoebe and Marigold got together…but y’all get my point.

“Nerd” is not a word.

And an epithet is an epithet.

Yes it was.

All the dictionaries seem to think “nerd” is a word.

I was called a nerd in school, among other things. I think being called a nerd was probably one of the nicist things I was called though. Oh well.

Although Dr. Seuss uses a word “nerd”, he uses it to refer to an imaginary animal. There is no evidence that it is the source of the modern word, and there is a problem with the idea: he published “If I Ran the Zoo” in 1950, and “nerd” meaning “drip”, “square”, etc., was in use by 1951, which is awfully fast for a word in a children’s book to become a slang term with a completely different meaning.

They both are words. What of that? Are you trying to suggest that comic-strip antagonists ought never to be rude? That there is a long history of bright children being lynched by their peers—and that it should be covered up? Just what are you saying, and whom are you saying it to, anyway?

How very pleasing to find your work again, good Dana… I see much of the same impish sense of humor and amused cynicism as in your previous works. :}

Drac

Sadly, my life was also insufficiently lonely when I was in school. More sadly, the ‘teasing’ I endured was daily delivered in the form of brutally-applied knuckles.

::soft sigh:: I would have given anything to have had a friend like Marigold. Heck, any friend, actually.