Guys for Girls Redux

[Peter A. McGraw]

Since this thread isn't dead yet, I probably should fess up to overhearing
a conversation this noon that refutes my earlier contention that "Dude!
(i.e., Wow!) You're pregnant!" would be distinguishable from "Dude (or
Mary, or Sally), you're pregnant!" by a different intonation pattern.

The gender question wasn't involved in this case, because it was a female
student addressing a male student, but her intonation of "Dude" was the
same intonation I'd use with "Wow," but the rest of the utterance made it
clear that it was a form of address, not a general exclamation.

(Note to self: try to remember that 16-year-old speech may sometimes differ
from 61-year old speech.)

Peter Mc.

--On Wednesday, May 14, 2003 5:30 PM -0400 Mark A Mandel <mam at THEWORLD.COM>
wrote:

> On Tue, 13 May 2003, Kathleen E. Miller wrote:
>
># My friend replied, "DUDE, you're pregnant!"
>
> ISTM (It seems to me) that people who say "DUDE!" very often use it as a
> non-vocative interjection, more like "Wow!" than like "Hey, guy!" My
> main data points are from my own offspring, now 26 and 22. I recall
> hearing especially from my daughter, the older one, "Dude!" as a
> one-word utterance when she hears something surprising. I may be wrong
> on the precise boundaries of the emotional/discursal content, but I'm
> pretty certain it's not vocative or in any other way referring to an
> individual.
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************