FW: Guys for Girls Redux

[FRITZ JUENGLING]

I just told my class this anecdote and asked if 'dude' struck them as being odd.  No one was bothered and they all said it was some interjection.  So, dude has expanded its meaning for them.
Fritz

>>> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU 05/13/03 09:05AM >>>
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