"dude" et al.

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

A few items:
1) A colleague asked me if there's an article or perhaps a book on expressions for death: "buy the farm," kick the bucket," "bite the dust," "croak," etc. Would anyone know?

2) I somehow missed the American Speech article (fall 2004) on "dude" and can't locate my copy at the moment. Barry Popik and I published quite a bit of material on this term in "Comments on Etymology." I wonder if the American Speech article mentioned it.

3) For the card game "Faro"---Is there any explanation for why it should be named for Pharaoh?  If so, then the the hypothesis of an Irish etymology would be wholly unnecessary. On the other hand,...

Gerald Cohen