"In the slang of the United States, egghead was an anti-intellectual epithet, directed at people considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and too lacking in realism, common sense, virility, etc. on account of their intellectual interests. The term egghead reached its peak currency during the 1950s, when vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon used it against Democratic Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. It is now rarely used, having been replaced in U.S. politics by other anti-intellectual epithets and socially by terms such as nerd and geek."
The above is how Wikipedia describes the term "egghead." Doesn't sound very flattering, does it? And yet the Burlington Free Press's headline this morning reads: "Eggheads unite! Scholarly competitions abound this weekend."
Given all the great coverage the Freeps devotes to high school sports, one might think that they could do better than a small staff report to consolidate all the coverage of the State Geo Bee, State Drama Festival, State Scholars Bowl, and State Science and Mathematics Fair. But to be downright insulting? No wonder 70 percent of our high school juniors can't do math. They don't want to do math. They'll get picked on.


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