FW: Guys for Girls Redux

[Frank Abate]

RE what Larry H says (cc'd below) in reply to Katy M:

I think this _dude_ is a sort of super-vocative, and does not refer to any
person specifically, but is simply a marker of surprise.  So in that context
it would be non-gender referential . . . or might we call it generic?

I have heard my teen and slightly beyond-teen kids and their friends say
this for years, and it seems an utterance of surprise, not directed to any
person.

Frank Abate


At 10:10 AM -0400 5/13/03, Kathleen E. Miller wrote:
>Hello All,
>
>A few months ago we had a discussion about calling a group of girls,
"guys."
>
>The other day, on our way through a rather seedy part of town (RFK's not in
>the greatest location) a woman came up to the car and asked for money,
>saying she was hungry and pregnant. (She was, obviously so). She then
>noticed a male friend [mid-30's Maryland native] smoking, and changed from
>asking for money, to asking for a cigarette.
>
>My friend replied, "DUDE, you're pregnant!"
>
>I made a [admittedly cursory] search of the archives and didn't notice this
>being discussed. And I don't know whether if I've behind the times and the
>entire world knows that it's morphed into non-gender specific use, or my
>friend's the only one to use it that way, but I had never heard it in such
>a context before.
>
Interesting.  I'd bet, like "guys" in the early days, that this is
more likely in the vocative (where the intended reference is easily
recoverable) than in purely referential contexts (#That was one
pregnant dude there!)

I know there's at least a limited use of "dudette", but perhaps only
jocularly and only in the primed context ("dudes and dudettes").

Larry