Heard on The Judges:_dude_,slight semantic shift

[Wilson Gray]

Mid-thirty-ish, black male speaker:

"Your honor, I was going to get a job and _be a *dude* about it_."
[I.e. be a provider for his girlfriend and their family]


Certain phrases are common, IME, to all dialects of English and don't
get "slangified," so to speak. Replacing "be a *man* about it" with
"be a *dude* about it"?

As Hank Hill would say, "That boy ain't right!"

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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