кас. в конце восклицает:
Короче, дайте две!

если, конечно, стиль позволяет. :-)

'Crowd' is in the sense of a subculture of shared interests and/or behavior, a 'тусовка' (although тусовка wouldn't be an appropriate translation here). I would agree with Supa Translata on this - just go with the множественное число. But the problen is indeed how best to translate 'geek'.

It's not simply that they spend too much time in front of a computer. 20 or more years ago geeks were the kids who preferred reading or hobbies instead of sports, who were inordinately nervous around members of the opposite sex, were not graceful (even physically awkward) and often had an elevated non-professional interest in gadgetry or any narrow subject or field (comic books, bird-watching... you name it).

But geeks can also be geeks just because they're clueless, i.e. out of touch with the world around them and, especially, how others see them. A kid who dresses outside the norm *without realizing it's odd* is often a geek. A kid who dresses outside the norm to be non-conformist or ironic is not a geek.

I would argue that in the past generation or two the label 'geek' has lost most of its negativity. In fact it has even become kind of cool in its own right (see any shitty Hollywood comedy for affirmation of this). With the explosion in computer use and the appearance of electronic gadgetry in every home the idea of being technically minded has lost it's stigma. Society has moved on. What used to be peculiar has now become ordinary and useful.

So a geek, to my mind, is either (i) for adults - someone who's technically minded, is good at or enjoys fixing gadgetry, or spends a lot of time on some other narrow field of interest in a non-professional capacity; or (ii) for youngsters - someone who's not considered popular and doesn't hang out with the cool kids or the rich kids (золотая молодёж).

I'd also vote for ботаник.

Regarding "give me a geek any time!": There is some context missing that makes it difficult for understand. "Give me X any time" is an expression used to show a strong preference for something *when presented with a choice*. The unabridged form would be "Given a choice between X and Y, give me X any time!" In other words, the person much prefers X to whatever other options are on offer.

Ok, that was more like 2 dollars than 2 cents, but you can keep the change ;)

Занятная у вас книжка. Почитать б. :)