Dude. Dude? Dude. Dude.

People often ask "Whither that wistful look in your eye when you think about linguistics?"  I never know how to respond.  Now I do.  The proper answer to that archaically phrased question is:

Dude.

Like seriously dude.  [See how I deployed dude there?  By addressing you, dear reader, as dude I marked our affiiation and connection by referencing our cool solidarity.  As you may imagine, the pitch of of my voice heightened on the pronunciation of dude and fell, like, seriously on the like seriously.] 

You think I'm lying?  Dude.  [Now it's a confrontational stance attenuator.  I'm simultaneously threatening and displaying cool solidarity with you.  You know me and you are tight yo . . . but now our solidarity's been indexed by my enunciating dude in a low pitch with a barely perceptible flourishing rise and a slightly slighty elongated syllable.]

Dude!  [It functions here as an exclamative not unlike Whoa!  The prosody of this dude varies depending on the nature of exclamation.  Because I wanted it to mark a grievance with my interlocutor I did not elongate the syllable and drop pitch but instead turned the whole damn thing in a plosive exclamation.]

Dude.  [Now I'm marking our sympathetic agreement.  'Cause dude, I know you don't think this whole thing about dude makes me sound like an ass.  So I used the dude of agreement to demonstrate the unconfrontational nature of our exchange while simultaneously retaining a measure of cool.  You know?]

Oh HELL yeah DUDE.  [I'm happy you see it that way.  I can tell by your unusual deployment of a dude intensifier that you index not merely an agreement but an enthusiastic agreement.  I appreciate your decision to take this enthusiastic interpersonal stance because we both recognize the strength of our cool solidarity and need not enter into competitive interactions of the sort indexed by certain dude usages.  The flexibility of dude as a marker of homosociality in America today means that you and I can dude each other as much as we'd like . . . even if we have passed the typical age range of nonstandard language usage.  'Cause dude, "adolescent peak" my ass.]

Comments

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Lest I forget: Click here [pdf] for a complete explanation. Also, apologies for not posting and/or responding to juicier material tonight. This is about as intellectual as I can muster this evening, as it's been a long day.

[Belle Lettre]

You suck.

I'VE always wanted to write something on how "dude" is a conversation in and of itself.

But you probably did it better anyway. You know, 'cause of your linguistic training and whatnot. Things of that nature.

(I am thinking I should do a post on vague statements like "yonder", "whatnot" and "things of that nature.")

So don't you beat me to it!

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I have a publishable essay on "there's a way in which," but I haven't worked up anything on yonder or things of that nature yet. One of the joys of reading linguistic papers on familiar idioms is that it's easy to read them "out-of-focus," i.e. to imagine that the authors are all like dude, that's how dude's used in American vernacular . . . yo.

[zeke]

Whoa. Wit in action. The Gilbert Gottfried Linguistics 200 comedy hour, courtesy of the State.

[Mike Schwartz]

An interesting exercise might be to ponder substitute words/phrases for dude.

Example:
Speaker A: So did you go out last night?
Speaker B: Dude...I didn't get home til 3.

"Dude," in the above exchange, is used as a signpost, the removal of which would deflate the breathless anticipation surely felt by Speaker A. Beginning a sentence with "dude" here sends notice that news of awe-inspiring male triumph will soon be revealed. But what might substitute for "dude?"

I'm also strangely amused by women that refer to each other as "dude." Dude is apparently gender-neutral. Or its use among women may just be plain old penis envy.

[Belle Lettre]

Not penis-envy. But I do use it. I kind of don't know why, other than what Scott's post declares: Dude is a conversation, in and of itself. One of my closest girl friends and I use it in all the ways he mentions. We don't refer to ourselves or each other as "dude" (as in, You are The Dude! (man, woman, etc). But we say "hey, dude, what's up" all the time. For women, it's a substitute/synonym for "girl," "chica," which sound pretty annoying after a while. What is most enjoyable are the emotions "dude" can convey depending on inflection. So in that respect, given the stereotypical ability of women to communicate feelings, "dude" is really quite useful.

Also, maybe it's a Southern California thing. I also use "yo" and "homie" a lot. As in "Hey Homie, s'up."

I do wish that it was completely gender neutral though. There is a sociologist that subtitles his blog "My life and thoughts as an Asian-American professor/sociologist/liberal/dude. I always wished that I could use "dude" like that. I HATE "dudette."

[Sour Duck]

Poor Scott F. Kiesling! It's bad enough he's at the University of Pittsburgh, but then you have to go and make fun of his paper (which I thought was cool).

BTW, anyone over 20 who uses "Dude" in their everyday conversation is a loser. (Using "cool" is a completely different matter..)

[Jason]

Dude.....

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I'm not making fun of the man I'll refer to, in order to demonstrate my respect, F. Scott Kiesling; I earnestly wish LSU hadn't dismantled the linguistics department, thereby making it impossible for me to major and/or attend a graduate program in linguistics . . . blah blah blah listen to me sob. You see my point though.

[Josh]

The Language Log gang got into the Kiesling thing when it was in the news. Their series of blogposts on the topic petered out shortly after the discussion of how to render "Dude" in French.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I hate when I'm late to the party. (I don't read Language Log as often as I should out of, um, "professional envy.")

[old]

post/comments made me feel a bit nostalgic. I'm southern californian (5th generation at that), but have like, totally lost 'dude' from my vocab after spending all but one of the last 11 years in the eastern time zone.

[Matt]

Hm...channeling Shklovsky this evening are we, Scott.

[Jamie Bodie]

Have you heard the Monty Python diatribe on the usage of the word f*ck?

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I haven't. Enlighten me . . . but not during class, since if that portrait of Joe Gould is borderline, a Monty Python diatribe on the work "fuck" (you can say it here, we're all adults . . . sorry Mom) would cross all lines.

[Jamie Bodie]

ok, here it is (imagine classical musical background as this is explained):
Perhaps one of the most interesting words in the English language today, is the word fuck. Of all the English words beginning with f, fuck is the single one referred to as the "f-word". It's the one magical word. Just by it's sound it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love. Fuck, as most of the other words in English, has arrived from Germany. Fuck from German's "fliechen" which mean to strike. In English, fuck folds into many grammatical categories. As a transital verb for instance, "John fucked Shirley". As an intransitive verb; "Shirley fucks". It's meaning is not always sexual, it can be used as an adjective such as; John's doing all the fucking work. As part of an adverb; "Shirley talks too fucking much", as an adverb enhancing an adjective; Shirley is fucking beautiful. As a noun; "I don't give a fuck". As part of a word: "abso-fucking-lutely" or "in-fucking-credible". Or as almost every word in a sentence: "fuck the fucking fuckers!". As you must realize, there aren't many words with the versitility such as the word fuck,as in these examples used as the following words;
- fraud: "I got fucked"
- trouble: "I guess I'm really fucked now"
- dismay: "Oh, fuck it!"
- aggresion: "don't fuck with me, buddy!"
- difficulty: "I don't understand this fucking question"
- inquery: "who the fuck was that?"
- dissatisfaction: "I don't like what the fuck is going on here"
- incompetence: "he's a fuck-off!"
- dismissal: "why don't you go outside and fuck yourself?"

I'm sure you can think of many more examples.
With all these multipurpoused applications, how can anyone be offended when you use the word?
Use this unique, flexibel word more often in your daily speech. It will identify the quality of your character immediately. Say it loudly and proudly:
FUCK YOU!

[dave g]

As well as can be determined, the recorded disquisition on the word "fuck" is actually the work of Ernie Anderson, an infamous ABC-TV announcer, former horror-movie host (Ghoulardi) and father of film-director Paul Thomas Anderson. No involvement by any members of Monty Python, or any other Englishmen for that matter.
Dude!

[Jamie Bodie]

Ah, so I trusted that the audio I have (obtained through, ahem, proper channels) was correct in attributing it to Monty Python. Upon googling, what I mostly found was that it's often inaccurately accredited to Monty Python, and a number of sites accredit it to Jack Wagner. In other words, no one knows who fucking wrote it. Dude, I didn't find anything attributing it to Ernie Anderson, can you show me the links?

[CryingOutToTheVoid]

I stumbled upon this DUD while searching for a downloadable version of the famously classic Jack Wagner outtake/break illustrating the use of the word FUCK.

As a blinding example of the pathetic lack of originality infecting Blog-generation, it demands I take the time to share some observations:
1. Dude, the disquisition on the use of Dude is such a fuking weak ripoff of Jack Wagner's satire that it fails in every attempt at comedy. The idiot who provided the WRITTEN description of the use of the word fails to realize that the audio is KEY to the comedic success. This is the primary ineptitude that inspired me to read what kind of idiotic comments could have been generated.
2. The dude who found the word 'disquisition' is clearly familiar with a book called a thesaurus, but needs to check the definition for bombastic and elucidate himself.
3. The dudette, or, if I may be so bold as to offer DUD as an alternative, fails to realize that the gender of the word is also vital to its usage and meaning. In other words chica, find your own fucking word for yourself instead of being so lazy that you use one of a masculine gender.
4. Lastly, the grain of data that led me to this pit of the pitifully unconscious and uninformed was Jack Wagner, an unmistakeable voiceover master who cannot possibly be mistaken for any other performer. This recording is not a 'video' you idiot. It is AUDIO, an incredibly rich medium often used for comedy, and it should never have been sullied by the video additions I have seen. It stands alone, needing no augmentation, but if a video were to be added, it should be a filmstrip, rolling painfully behind in its timing to the audio, probably text only, perhaps sentence diagraming to identify the proper parts of speech.

Jack made a career of audio voiceovers, accompanying filmstrips for public school and other governmental training programs. As instructional medium, predating computers and video, I believe I can state that it truly sucked. It was almost funny that it WAS an instuctional tool, except that we were forced to watch and listen to them.

Along with many hilarious outtakes, this recording was probably meant to be discarded, but was saved by some unknown and brilliant technician recognizing the spontaneous satirical genious. Wagner later came to love the recording (or so he said) and he actually re-recorded it, in exactly the same manner as dozens of other grammar-instruction filmstrip products.

Monty Python and George Carlin are and were fantastic comedic geniouses. Their voices, equally unmistakeable would object to my wasting the time it has taken to type this comment.
The gang of Brits would almost certainly read your drivel in character as the Village Idiot, or perhaps the upper-class dullard with the overbite.
George, being much less tolerant in his old age, would turn around and drop a shit on every one of you for being so painfully unoriginal, uninformed, and apparently incapable of independent or logical thought. He spins in his grave thinking that you attributed this beautiful satire to anyone but Wagner, and realizing that all his effort to try to get you to THINK had failed.

Sorry George, I've tried too, but I think it's the wrong audience.

[Ahistoricality]

Why is it that self-described afficionados of humor are so often humorless about their subject and sources? Also completely lacking in perspective: there are any number of words which have been subjected to this sort of routine in the past. A student gave me a photocopy of a short disquisition on "shit" once that I deeply regret having lost in several moves.