I haven't heard the phrase, but then I can't say that I'm part of the "in-crowd."
Seriously, how reliable is the Urban Dictionary anyway? I have often heard that it is unreliable, so then I question citing it so much. Just wondering.
Geek as in nerd and cred as in credibility. Geek cred is a lot like street cred, from which it was no doubt coined. It is one of those intangeables, like coolness or hipness. I'd say it's the level of respect that is afforded to somebody by his peers directly proportional to his experience. In the case of geek cred, it would be related to his knowledge of and involvement with technology. Conceptually, You might want to take a look at the geek code, too.
k: UD, unlike Wikipedia, is highly unreliable, largely because it isn't subject to continual revision by millions of critical users. However, it's sometimes the first to recognize a neologism. Where several defs agree and esp if they get many thumbs-up, the term is worth looking into
As for "geek cred", it has been suggested that this isn't a true neologism because it merely consists of two existing nelogisms connected in a conventional manner. Would you not concur
If for instance you were compiling a dictionary of neologisms, would you provide separate entries for street, burb, and and geek cred, knowing full well that eventually there would be hundreds if not thousands of "(adjective)cred" in common parlanceThis message has been edited. Last edited by: dalehileman,
Speaking as someone who is by most definitions a geek, I don't think I have ever heard this term. I can see exactly what it means, but it doesn't seem like it would come up very often. Amongst "geeks", you generally wouldn't compare your cred, and I can't imagine it being a term used by those who aren't "geeks", so its usage seems fairly restricted.
I agree with Dale that "X cred" is not really a neologism, since almost anything for X makes it an understandable expression.
