Nerdspotting

My method of differentiating between geeks and nerds is actually very similar to what Sarah wrote yesterday.

Nerds, in my definition, have a wide range of interests.  Nerds are nerds about everything (or a lot of things, at any rate).

Geeks, on the other hand, tend to be more narrowly focused on a certain subject.  Geeks are geeks about specific things.

There is one other criterion that I would like to add.  I associate both nerds and geeks as being, in general, on average, not in every case but fairly often, more introverted as well as more intelligent than non-nerd/geeks.  I would say the introversion applies slightly more to geeks and the intelligence slightly more to nerds.  So, both nerds and geeks have above-average levels of introversion and intelligence, but I think it would be more likely to find an extroverted nerd than an extroverted geek, and more likely to find an average-intelligence geek than an average-intelligence nerd.  Of course, these are clearly blanket statements and not hard and fast rules, but I feel like that is the way it is, in general.

It is possible to be both a nerd and a geek.  You can be a nerd in general, but have specific things that you geek about.

Personally, I am a nerd, but I don't think I'm geek about anything any more (I used to be a geek about both Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, and a really long time ago, about Pokémon, but I've lost my geek-level of interest in any of those things).