DudeFor other uses, see Dude (disambiguation).

Dude is an American English slang term[1] for an individual. It typically applies tomales, although the word can encompass all genders.

Dude is an old term, recognized by multiple generations although potentially with

slightly different meanings.[2] From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant aperson who dressed in an extremely fashion-forward manner (a dandy) or a citifiedperson who was visiting a rural location but stuck out (a city slicker). In the 1960s,dude evolved to mean any male person, a meaning that slipped into mainstreamAmerican slang in the 1970s. Current slang retains at least some use of all three ofthese common meanings.

History

The word may have derived from the Scottish term for

clothes, duddies.[5] The term "dude" was first used in print in1876, in Putnam's Magazine, to mock how a woman was

dressed (as a "dud"/dude).[5] The use of the word "dudde"

for clothing in English goes as far back 1567.[6]

In the popular press of the 1880s and 1890s, "dude" was anew word for "dandy" – an extremely well-dressed male, aman who paid particular importance to how he appeared.The café society and Bright Young Things of the late 1800sand early 1900s were populated with dudes. Young men ofleisure vied to show off their wardrobes. The best known ofthis type is probably Evander Berry Wall, who was dubbed"King of the Dudes" in 1880s New York and maintained areputation for sartorial splendor all his life. This version of the word is still inoccasional use in American slang, as in the phrase "all duded up" for getting dressed

in fancy clothes.[7]

A variation of this was a well-dressed man who is unfamiliar with life outside a largecity. In The Home and Farm Manual (1883), author Jonathan Periam used the term"dude" several times to denote an ill-bred and ignorant, but ostentatious, man fromthe city.

The implication of an individual who is unfamiliar with the demands of life outside ofurban settings gave rise to the definition of dude as a city slicker, or "an Easterner in

the [United States] West".[1] Thus "dude" was used to describe the wealthy men of theexpansion of the United States during the 19th century by ranch-and-homestead-bound settlers of the American Old West. This use is reflected in the dude ranch, aguest ranch catering to urbanites seeking more rural experiences. Dude ranchesbegan to appear in the American West in the early 20th century, for wealthyEasterners who came to experience the "cowboy life." The implicit contrast is withthose persons accustomed to a given frontier, agricultural, mining, or other ruralsetting. This usage of "dude" was still in use in the 1950s in America, as a word for a

tourist — of either gender — who attempts to dress like the local culture but fails.[8]

An inverse of these uses of "dude" would be the term "redneck," a contemporaryAmerican colloquialism referring to poor farmers and uneducated persons, which

itself became pejorative, and is also still in use.[9][10][11]

The term was also used as a job description, such as "bush hook dude" as a positionon a railroad in the 1880s. For an example, see the Stampede Tunnel.

In the early 1960s, dude became prominent in surfer culture as a synonym of guy orfella. The female equivalent was "dudette" or "dudess," but these have both fallen intodisuse, and "dude" is now also used as a unisex term. This more general meaning of"dude" started creeping into the mainstream in the mid-1970s. "Dude," particularly insurfer and “bro” culture, is generally used informally to address someone (“Dude, I’m

glad you finally called”) or refer to another person (“That dude is stealing my car”).[12]

In popular culture

1883 – A political cartoon of Chester A. Arthur pictures the refined, well-dressedPresident, with the caption, "According to your cloth you've cut your coat, ODude of all the White House residents; We trust that will help you with the vote,

When next we go nominating Presidents."1889 – Andy a dude and a chorus of dudes in the opera Leo, the Royal Cadet byOscar Ferdinand Telgmann sing We are the Dudes: "We are the dudes you readabout in all the papers Social Etudes, we captivate all hearts by our capers, BaiGawge! Once every week the Bank pays each and all of us two dollars; But, bycold cheek we sport the latest thing in coats and collars, Bai Gawge! Weep ye, enmasse! We're suffering most excruciating pain; For ah! alas! The Prince of Waleshas ceased to carry a cane, Bai Gawge! Till we learn whether His Highness ordersthat the cane shall go; Each with a feather we promenade the city streets just so,

Bai Gawge!"[13]

1889 – A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain commentson how commoners in Medieval Britain worshiped nobility and title withoutquestion, for the sake only of a meaningless title: "...and the best of Englishcommoners was still content to see his inferiors impudently continuing to hold anumber of positions, such as lordships and the throne, to which the grotesquelaws of his country did not allow him to aspire; in fact, he was even able topersuade himself that he was proud of it. It seems to show that there isn'tanything you can't stand, if you are only born and bred to it. Of course that taint,that reverence for rank and title, had been in our American blood, too – I knowthat; but when I left America it had disappeared – at least to all intents andpurposes. The remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudesses. When adisease has worked its way down to that level, it may fairly be said to be out ofthe system."1959 – Howard Hawks's film Rio Bravo has Dean Martin as "Dude," the drunkdeputy to John Wayne.1969 - In the film Easy Rider, Billy (Dennis Hopper) speculates that George(Jack Nicholson) "must be some important dude". When George asks what theword "dude" means, Wyatt (Peter Fonda) tells him "dude means, uh, nice guy,dude means regular sort of person".1972 – Mott the Hoople releases their hit album, All the Young Dudes, namedafter the title cut, which was written for the band by David Bowie.1973 – The premiere of Dude, a musical by Galt MacDermot.1974 – Steely Dan releases their album Pretzel Logic, which features the song"Any Major Dude Will Tell You"

1981 – Quincy Jones releases his album The Dude1985 – Less Than Zero (a novel by Bret Easton Ellis) includes the first publishedusage of the now-common phrase, "No way, dude!", and the first mainstreamdisplay of "dude" having crossed the gender barrier. In a noteworthy scene, ayoung woman tells her mother, "No way, dude."1987 – Aerosmith release a song called "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)"1989 – Hey Dude premieres on Nickelodeon; it will go on to run for three years.The cast of this teenage sitcom set on a dude ranch included Christine Taylor.1989 – In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, in the future, the world's slogan is"Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!".1990 – In Back to the Future Part III, set in 1885, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannenfrequently calls Marty McFly "Dude" as it is apparent from his attire anddemeanor he is not a frontiersman.1991 - Scatterbrain release a song called "Don't Call Me Dude", which became aTop 20 pop single in Australia.1996 – Britpop band Kula Shaker title the first track of their album K "Hey,Dude".1997 – Less than Jake's song "We're all Dudes" from the soundtrack to the movieGood Burger1997 – Blink-182 release an album called Dude Ranch.1998 – BASEketball, featuring Trey Parker and Matt Stone as two young menwho, at one point in the film, have an argument composed entirely of the word"dude", with their inflections conveying the meaning of each instance of theword1998 – The Big Lebowski, a film by Joel and Ethan Coen features Jeff Bridges as"The Dude" ("or His Dudeness, or Duder, or, you know, El Duderino, if you'renot into the whole brevity thing"), an aging hippie/beach bum, who turns 'dude'into a philosophy. The film's narrator, an old-fashioned cowboy played by SamElliott, insinuates that he considers the term 'dude' in its traditional sense,meaning a pretentious city-slicker type, rather than in its more contemporarysense.2000 – Dude, Where's My Car?, a comedy film directed by Danny Leiner,starring Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott2001 – "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!", an advertising campaign by Dell Computer

Corporation, starring Ben Curtis as "Steven the Dell Dude"2003 - Dude, Where's My Country?, a book by Michael Moore dealing withcorporate and political events in the United States.2003 - "Dude, Where's My Ranch?," an episode of the animated sitcom TheSimpsons set on a dude ranch, airs on FOX.2003 - The green sea turtle characters Crush (father) and Squirt (son) in themovie Finding Nemo habitually speak in California English, using the "dude"term repeatedly in their dialogue.2005 - Dudeism, a religion inspired by The Big Lebowski was founded topromote a philosophy congruent with the ethos implicit in the modern form ofthe word "Dude."2008 – Bud Light airs an advertising campaign in which the dialogue consistsentirely of different inflections of "Dude!" and does not mention the product by

name.[14] It was a followup to their near-identical and more widely noted 1999–2002 "Whassup?" campaign.

References

1. ^ a b "Dude, Def. 2 – The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 8 May 2007.

2. ^ Winona Bullard, Shirley Johnson, Jerkeshea Morris, Kelly Fox, Cassie Howell."Slang".

3. ^ Bryk, William (June 22, 2005). "King of the Dudes". The New York Sun.Retrieved 2008-11-11.

4. ^ Jeffers, Harry Paul (2005). Diamond Jim Brady: Prince of the Gilded Age,p.45. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-39102-6

5. ^ a b Mapes Dodge, Mary (May–October 1901). St. Nicholas: an IllustratedMagazine for Young Folks. XXVIII. Scribner & Co. p. 734. Retrieved 15December 2008.

6. ^ Meriam Webster's Dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dud

7. ^ "duded up", McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs,The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2002, retrieved 10 October 2012

8. ^ Robert Knoll (1952). "The meanings and etymologies of dude". JSTOR 453362.

9. ^ Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang(1975) p. 424.

10. ^ "Redneck". Dictionary.com.11. ^ Barbara Ann Kipfer and Robert L. Chapman, American Slang (2008) p. 40412. ^ Howell, Cassie. "Examples of Slang". Retrieved 10 October 2012.13. ^ Oscar Telgmann Leo, the Royal Cadet Kingston, Ontario Archive.org14. ^ Swansburg, John (28 January 2008). "Dude! How great are those new Bud

Light ads?". Slate.com. Retrieved 10 March 2008.

External links

Dude – By Kiesling, Scott F., Published in American Speech, Vol. 79, No. 3, Fall2004, pp. 281–305Dude, Where's My Dude? – Dudelicious Dissection, From Sontag to Spicoli, NewYork ObserverWords@random: "dude"Material for the Study of Dude – The etymological origin of the word "dude" byBarry Popik, David Shulman, and Gerald Cohen. Originally published inComments on Etymology, October 1993, Vol. 23, No. 1