FW: Guys for Girls Redux

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:38 AM -0400 5/13/03, Frank Abate wrote:
>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.

Sort of like
"Boy/Man, are you pregnant!"?

L

>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