Time magazine’s October 22nd issue carries the article titled “Paul Ryan on the campaign trail: More performer than wonk.” The article begins with the following lines:
“Mitt Romney's running mate was doing what he likes best: wonking
out." I'm kind of a powerpoint guy, so I hope you'll bear with me,"
Paul Ryan told about 2,000 people at the University of Central Florida
gymnasium in Orlando in late September.”
OALED defines “wonk” as noun, AmE, informal, disapproving, meaning (1) a person who works too hard and is considered boring. (2) a person who takes too much interest in the less important details of political policy.
So I surmise the meaning of “wonk” in the headline as defined in (2) of the above. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
However, I don’t understand what “wonking out” means in the beginning line of the body copy.
OALED doesn’t show usage of “wonk” as a verb, while Readers English Japanese Dictionary at hand shows the usage of wonk” as vi. meaning ‘to study extremely hard,’ and vt. meaning ‘to give an answer from highly technical view point.’
What does “wonking out” mean? Does it mean hard-working like a wonk? Why “out” is necessary? What nuance is added to by adding “out” to “wonk”?
Best Answer
"Wonking out", like "geeking out", means to not just be a wonk, but to do so excessively in a way to deliberately show off how much of a wonk one is, often with a mixture of pride (toward fellow wonks) and embarrassment (toward non-wonks).
He's putting up his Powerpoint presentation as if to say "See how wonky I am? I will actually bore you with pie graphs instead of giving you sound bites.", but his aim is really to impress the people who value pie graphs more.