What do the British mean when they call somebody an "anorak"?
The nearest equivalent non-British slang term might be "nerd". An anorak is literally a hooded waterproof coat, and the slang term was originally applied to trainspotters - people whose hobby is hanging around railway stations, monitoring the arrivals/departures of various trains and writing down their serial numbers in little notebooks. I swear there are such people, and their hobby requires them to wear suitably draught-proof clothing. By extension it has become applied to anyone with an obsessive interest in a subject that is too technical or boring for anyone else to know much about. By the way, the title of the film Trainspotters is a reference to the interest the characters had in the traffic up and down the lines in their arms!
Leo Hickey, Barking UK
It is a disparaging term for someone who goes trainspotting, can tell you when each episode of Star Trek was originally broadcast, and has no friends other than fellow 'anoraks'. This is their chosen outergarment, whatever the weather, and they always still live with their mothers. They can quote 'Red Dwarf' scripts vebatim, and know all the boring and unimportant stuff about how computers work. Will that do?
Jonathan, Lancaster UK
It's due to the type of coat worn by trainspotters whilst they scribble frantically into their notebooks on the end of cold, lonely railway platforms. The appeal of trainspotting is a mystery to most of us so if someone hints at rather too much statistical knowledge of something mundane or trivial, the epithet "anorak" is jofully applied. I suppose the american "nerd" is an equivalent.
Austin Fisher, Auckland New Zealand
An anorak is a derogatory term meaning the anal retentive accumulation of miniscule, arcane, and quite often useless bits of information. I believe it was used first around the indie music scene of the mid eighties. The item in question refers to the preferred clothing of those followers of that great British pastime - trainspotting. Knowledge for knowledge's sake, if ever there was.
