No, you're not reading the Onion.

Psychology lecturer and psychotherapist Dr Sonja Falck says that "anti-IQ" insults are hate crime's last "taboo" and that they should be legally treated the same way as homophobic and racist slurs.

During her research, Falck says that people being called "nerd" or "egghead" or "brainiac" contributed to them "being set apart as being different to others and feeling like they're a misfit and they don't belong."

So in other words, these individuals developed high IQs partly as a result of being taunted as "nerds," suggesting the insults actually helped them in life.

However, Falck claims that such terms cause emotional trauma and is calling for "legislative action" to treat the insults 'nerd', 'brainbox', 'geek', 'egg-head', 'smart-arse', 'dweeb' and 'smarty-pants' as hate crimes.