Dork

Dork is a slang word for a quirky, silly and/or stupid, socially inept person, or one who is out of touch with contemporary trends. Popular etymology of the word suggests that this slang term originally came from a term that meant a whale's penis. That idea is half right.

"dork" did originally refer to a penis, but it referred to a human penis, not a cetacean penis. The slang sense meaning "penis" dates back to at least the year 1961 and is thought to be by etymologists a variant on the word dick or "dirk" (another name sometimes used to personalize the phallus). The sense of "dork" meaning a stupid or obnoxious person started a few years later, in 1967. How the myth about the word originally referring to a whale's penis came about is unknown.

References

• http://www.wordorigins.org/wordord.htm