“Nerd”, and “Geek”, This what we label the smart kids. Both words have very negative connotations, which means when someone is called geek or nerd, it’s seen as a bad thing. In the passage from “America Needs Its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman, Fridman is talking to his audience, which is Americans, about America lacks support for really intelligent people and those who wants to learn. This is causing people to not want to be seen as academically smart but this is also causing America to fall behind other countries in academics. Fridman develops this argument through his use of compare and contrast, and diction to show how America needs “nerds.” "A geek, according to Webster ... is a street performer who shocks the public by biting off heads of
