Today's Interesting Tidbit:

The first recorded usage of the word "nerd" was in Dr. Seuss' 1950 book "If I ran the Zoo."

And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too! (The nerd is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.)

The Online Etymology Dictionary theorizes that the word is "probably an alteration of 1940s slang nert 'stupid or crazy person,' itself an alteration of nut."

Dictionary.com's entry contains this passage:

Some experts claim there is no semantic connection and the identity of the words is fortuitous. Others maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator of nerd and that the word nerd (“comically unpleasant creature”) was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers, had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class, a “square.”

This being relevant to most, if not all of us here at Grandpa John, I thought you would be interested.

And, no kidding, this is a link to a 157-page document entitled "Who's Who and What's What in Dr. Seuss Books," compiled by researchers at Dartmouth College.

Ah, those ivy league educations. Not quite what they used to be.