Undefined Nerds

I find it interesting that there are certain groups of people that are automatically labeled as some kind of degrading term. For example, math people are automatically "nerds", band people are always "geeks", and anyone with even a limited knowledge of "Star Wars" is classified as "one of those people".

In light of these allegations, it is interesting to me that people with a deep and abiding love of the English language and the literature that follows behind that are viewed as completely normal. These people escape the "weird" radar, flying free of any label in particular. However, as an English major, I have been aware of the lie of our normality for some time when it became painfully obvious in this morning's English 251 class. My professor put an overhead up that had the following quote on it:

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

– Sherlock Holmes in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”

Almost before the projector had truly focused the black words, voices were ringing out with added quotes from this same book. "Oh, my dear Watson," was clearly heard in twenty very poor imitations of a British accent. Two of the students in front of me even began an intense disagreement on the exact wording of one of the quotes from the text. Oh dear.

So fear not, math nerds, band geeks, and you people. At this rate, we English dorks will not remain under the radar for much longer.