FW: Guys for Girls Redux

[mark worden]

The best place to see an extended, perhaps "supervocative" use of Dude! is
in the movie (now on DVD), Dude! Where's My Car?  Rent it now to catch up on
pop culture, dude.

(I am not a Blockbusters dude.)



Quark out
Lower Umpqua Addictive Conundrum Institute


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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: FW: Guys for Girls Redux
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
> Frank Abate said:
> >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.
> >
>
> I've heard _Dude!_ as a general exclamation. For instance, one of my
> colleagues was pleasantly surprised at a cool computer trick I showed
> him. His use of _Dude!_ struck me as a somewhat more emphatic
> alternative to _cool!_.
> --
>
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> Alice Faber
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