On Friday, another journalist and I chatted about the geek speak from Microsoft’s financial analyst conference, the previous day. He remarked how during their speeches, Microsoft executives “spoke a different language”—that the way they spoke was really tough to follow. But during hallway breaks and over lunch they spoke more like “normal” people.
I attribute the behavior to the nerd subculture, which New York Times Magazine story “Who’s a Nerd Anyway?” captures quite well. Reporter Benjamin Nugent writes about nerd research:
“As a linguist, [Mary] Bucholtz understands nerdiness first and foremost as a way of using language. In a 2001 paper, ‘The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness,’ and other works, including a book in progress, Bucholtz notes that the ‘hegemonic’ ‘cool white’ kids use a limited amount of African-American vernacular English; they may say ‘blood’ in lieu of ‘friend,’ or drop the ‘g’ in ‘playing.’
But the nerds she has interviewed, mostly white kids, punctiliously adhere to Standard English. They often favor Greco-Latinate words over Germanic ones (‘it’s my observation’ instead of ‘I think’), a preference that lends an air of scientific detachment. They’re aware they speak distinctively, and they use language as a badge of membership in their cliques.”
I can’t speak for the researcher’s political biases behind her conclusions—whether neutral or influenced (in other words, does she have it in for white men)—but they seem credible enough to me.
“Bucholtz uses the term ‘hyperwhite’ to describe nerd language in particular, she claims that the ‘symbolic resources of an extreme whiteness’ can be used elsewhere,” Nugent writes. “Nerdiness, she has concluded, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, ‘hyperwhite.'”
In context of the nerdy language heard on Thursday from Microsoft’s white leadership, the perspective makes sense to me. They asserted their believed intellectual superiority by the way they talked. I don’t single out Microsoft executives. All subcultures assert their position, authority and distinctiveness. If this research is to be believed, nerds use language as one means.
Photo courtesy of Microsoft—Bill Gates, Craig Mundie, Ray Ozzie and Steve Ballmer