In its original meaning, the work "geek" identified a "carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually included biting the head off a live chicken or snake." In more recent times, the word "geek" has come to identify "a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of". Despite the generally negative connotation indicated by these definitions, the last few years have seen the term "geek" most frequenty associated with and identifying devoted and highly knowledgeable users of personal computers, often also referred to (in a somewhat more positive sense) as "techies". This "transformation" of the meaning of the word "geek" from a carnival performer who bites the heads off chickens or snakes, to a person highly knowledgeable about computers and the like, has also to a large extent altered the originally negative connotation of the term to one having a more positive meaning. Indeed, among computer cognoscenti, identifying someone as a "computer geek" can have a distinctly positive connotation. - In Re Trademark Application of GeekGirl Global, written by Lance J. Lieberman, November 1995