[Ads-l] dude = 'person of any gender'

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has an ex. of "cold dudes" = cold bottles (or cans) of beer from so
early as 1961 (and ref. to early '50s), where "dude" = 'thing, usu.
manufactured.'

Cf. now familiar use of 'guy' in the same sense - though used with "what,"
not "who": (e.g., "What's this guy?").

JL



On Sun, Jun 12, 2022 at 10:14 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> It might be worth revisiting Scott Kiesling's paper "Dude" in the 2004
> volume of American Speech (https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-79-3-281), in
> which he breaks down usage by sex of speaker as well as sex of
> addressee/referent and discusses the distinction between vocative and
> referential uses to see how usage may have changed over the last couple of
> decades.
>
> LH
>
> On Sat, Jun 11, 2022 at 10:56 PM Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > In season one, second episode, about 20 minutes in, there is a vocative
> or
> > interjection usage of “dude” used to a goat. The goat has gotten its head
> > caught in a fence. An argument could be made for this being
> > anthropomorphizing but I think the applicability of “dude” can cover
> > non-humans without the need for that argument.
> >
> > I know this term has been discussed, but non-mail coverage is sparse win
> > dictionaries. The OED (3a) says “dude” means a person and usually a man,
> > and has two example sentences of vocatives.
> >
> > Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dude <
> > https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dude>) has the vocative but
> > claims it means only “fellow, guy”.
> >
> > Cambridge University Press (
> > https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dude <
> > https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dude>), Lexico (
> > https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/dude <
> > https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/dude>), and Vocabulary.com (
> > https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/dude <
> > https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/dude>) say it only means “man”.
> >
> > Dictionary.com (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dude <
> > https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dude>) has an interjection meaning.
> >
> > I’m not going to through the UD; there are 242 pages of entries (
> > https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dude <
> > https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dude>) and am reasonably
> > sure at least 50 definitions get it right.
> >
> > Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
> > Formerly of Seattle, WA
> >
> > > On 27 Jan 2021, at 09:57, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Not new, but worth noting:
> > >
> > > Gina McCarthy, White House Climate Adviser (age 66), on CNN just now:
> > >
> > > "I'm the dude who's supposed to deliver this in a timely way."
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


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