Constrained Bliss Point

Living in a pretty little bubble for the summer, I’ve begun to miss the intellectual stimulation of being at a university surrounded by nerds. So, while I’d rather the summer not end too quickly, I am looking forward to being part of a horde of academics come Fall.

It struck me, talking to a friend from RPI, that the types of nerds I encounter at Georgetown will be markedly different from the nerds found at Rensselaer. While (I imagine) it will be easier to find econ nerds, I have a feeling that there will be far fewer techies. And, you know, internet geeks and movie buffs and mathematicians.

So I’m trying to develop a list of  “necessary topics for nerditry,” at least inasmuch as I myself define nerditry. Note that they are necessary conditions but not sufficient conditions, since there is a certain je ne sais quoi about nerds that can’t be defined. And I’m not looking for  “A nerd is X” or “A nerd does Y” either — think of this as: “if I wanted to emulate a nerd, what would I need to know?”

Nerds need to be familiar with at least one and preferably many esoteric academic topics very well. So the first condition isn’t a particular topic, it’s any topic, provided you can speak with authority and are actually interested in it. Next you need to know a bunch of trivia. Again the particular topic isn’t important, though movie quotes and internet memes are sure bets. A nerd should be comfortable with maths. If someone starts talking about sets or normal distributions or Laplace transforms, you should know what they’re saying. Maths provide a useful language for discussion, much like economics, so learning the terminology of your nerd group is vital.

I suppose all nerds are different. I wonder if a set of necessary conditions for nerditry could ever be formulated. This is harder than I had anticipated.

I am a nerd for grammar, among other things. I think English has somewhat complex grammatical rules for a reason, and that systematic mistakes in usage should not be tolerated. I’ve prided myself on knowing the corner cases of language ever since I became self-aware.

For example, farther and further are mostly interchangeable, but they are subtly different. For example, farther should be used with measures of distance, whereas further is for measures of degree or time; further is also used as the comparative form of far. Although Wiktionary tells me that experts have never made a fuss about this distinction, I tend to err on the side of grammar nerditry.

Songs are different than regular usage, though. Grammatical constraints are often relaxed or broken for artistic effect or because of the exigency of other types of constraints. It used to irk me when artists would use the improper form of lay or lie in their songs, until I thought of how weird it would sound to use the correct form. At the same time, I have the utmost respect for artists who navigate treacherous grammatical straits properly and elegantly.

Quick grammar lesson: to lay is transitive, as in “I lay the book down on the table.” To lie is intransitive, as in “I lie down on the couch to take a nap.” The confusion arises because the past tense of lie is lay. I lie / I lay / I had lain. I lay / I laid / I had laid. I’ll try not to judge you for getting this wrong.

A recent example is The Bird & The Bee’s Love Letter to Japan: “and now, all my heart I will lay down precisely at your feet”. The present tense of to lay. The transitive one. Perfect.