Dude

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Evander Berry Wall, a New York socialite, was dubbed "King of the Dudes." He is pictured (1888) in the New York American at the time of the "battle of the Dudes".^[1][2]

A dude is an individual, typically male, particularly somebody well dressed or who has never lived outside a big city. The female equivalent, which is used less often, is "dudette." However, "dude" has evolved to become more unisex to encompass both genders,^[3] and this was true even in the 1950s, when the word was used in its more traditional sense.^[4]

The word dude is an American English slang term generally used informally to address or refer to somebody and was once used primarily by adults but this has become a common slang term used in various age groups.

[edit] History

The term "dude" was first used in speech in 1873. It was first used in print in 1876, in Putnam's Magazine.^[5]

One of the earliest books to use the word was The Home and Farm Manual, written by Jonathan Periam in 1883. In that work, Periam used the term "dude" several times to denote an ill-bred and ignorant, but ostentatious, man from the city. The term may have also been used as a job description such as "bush hook dude" ^[6] as a position on a railroad in the 1880s.

"Dude ranches," to which wealthy Easterners came to experience the "cowboy life," began to appear in the American West in the early 20th century.

The oldest usage seems to have been a well-dressed male, or one who is unfamiliar with life outside a large city. These definitions may have given rise to a more technical definition: "an Easterner in the West" (United States).^[7] Thus "dude" was used to describe the prude wealthy men of the rustic western expansion of the United States during the 19th century by German settlers of the American Old West.^{[citation needed]}

The word became prominent in surfer culture in the early '60s, but it wasn't until the mid-'70s that it started creeping into the mainstream. Some usages in pop culture have contributed to the spread of this word.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Dude in popular culture

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (October 2009)

• 1883 - Political cartoon of Chester A. Arthur pictures the refined, well-dressed President, with the caption, "According to your cloth you've cut your coat, O Dude of all the White House residents; We trust that will help you with the vote, When next we go nominating Presidents."
• 1889 - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain comments on how commoners in Medieval Britain worshiped nobility and title without question, for the sake only of a meaningless title: "...and the best of English commoners was still content to see his inferiors impudently continuing to hold a number of positions, such as lordships and the throne, to which the grotesque laws of his country did not allow him to aspire; in fact, he was even able to persuade himself that he was proud of it. It seems to show that there isn't anything 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 know that; but when I left America it had disappeared - at least to all intents and purposes. The remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudesses. When a disease has worked its way down to that level, it may fairly be said to be out of the system."

• 1959 - Howard Hawks's film Rio Bravo has Dean Martin as "Dude," the drunk deputy to John Wayne.
• 1962 - In John Ford's film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Lee Marvin's bad guy title character continually and sarcastically refers to Jimmy Stewart's tenderfoot lawyer character as "dude."
• 1965-68 - I Spy, a US television show, Bill Cosby's character Alexander Scott occasionally addresses Robert Culp's character Kelly Robinson as "dude."
• 1969 - In Dennis Hopper's cult film Easy Rider, the protagonist Wyatt (Peter Fonda) is seen describing the word "dude" to George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) as "...a nice guy... a regular sort of person."
• 1972 - Mott the Hoople releases their hit album, All the Young Dudes, named after the title cut, which was written for the band by David Bowie.
• 1973 - The premiere of Dude, a musical by Galt MacDermot.
• 1982 - In Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) utilizes the word "dude" in its modern convention, "Make up your mind, dude, is he gonna shit or is he gonna kill us? "
• 1985 - Less Than Zero (a novel by Bret Easton Ellis) includes the first published usage of the now-common phrase, "No way, dude!", and the first mainstream display of "dude" having crossed the gender barrier. In a noteworthy scene, a young woman tells her mother, "No way, dude."
• 1987 - Aerosmith released a song called Dude (Looks Like a Lady)
• 1988 - Red Dwarf, Holly ships computer greets the crew each time with "What's happening dudes?"
• 1989 - "Hey Dude" premiers on Nickelodeon; it would go on to run for three years. The cast of this teenage sitcom set on a dude ranch included Christine Taylor.
• 1990 - Scatterbrain single "Don't Call Me Dude".
• 1993 - Adam Sandler's comedy album "They're All Gonna Laugh at You!" features the track "Buddy," in which several characters have a conversation composed almost entirely of the words "buddy," "homey," and "dude."
• 1994 - Aaron Oberst-Horner dubbed "The Duke of The Dudes".
• 1997 - Less than Jake's song "We're all Dudes" from the soundtrack to the movie Good Burger.
• 1997 - Blink-182 released an album called Dude Ranch.
• 1998 - BASEketball, featuring Trey Parker and Matt Stone as two young men who, 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 the word.
• 1998 - The Big Lebowski, a film by Joel and Ethan Coen and featuring Jeff Bridges as "The Dude" ("or His Dudeness, or Duder, or, you know, El Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing"), an aging hippie/beach bum, turns "Dude" into a philosophy. The film's narrator, an old-fashioned cowboy played by Sam Elliott, insinuates that he considers the term "dude" in its traditional sense, meaning a pretentious city-slicker type, rather than in its more contemporary sense.
• 2000 - Dude, Where's My Car?, a comedy film directed by Danny Leiner, starring Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott.
• 2001 - "Dude, you're getting a Dell!", an advertising campaign by Dell Computer Corporation, starring Ben Curtis as "Steven the Dell Dude."
• 2004 - HBO series, Deadwood, in its first few episodes features the character Whitney Garret, a wealthy young businessman from New York city, who has come to the Black Hills in search of a claim to prospect for gold. He is referred to throughout his appearances in the series as "That Dude from New York", or just, "The Dude".
• 2004 - In the first season of TAPS Ghost Hunters (episode 5), one of the investigators coins the famous "Dude run!".
• 2008 - Bud Light airs an advertising campaign in which the dialogue consists entirely of different inflections of "Dude!" and does not mention the product by name.^[8]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Look up dude in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Compact Oxford English Dictionary's Definition
• Dude - By Kiesling, Scott F., Published in American Speech, Vol. 79, No. 3, Fall 2004, pp. 281-305
• You've Come a Long Way, Dude: A History, By Richard A. Hill, American Speech, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 321-327
• Dude, Where's My Dude? - Dudelicious Dissection, From Sontag to Spicoli, New York Observer
• Words@random: "dude"
• Dudeism A religion devoted to promoting the ideal of the "dude."
• Material for the study of Dude - a scholarly look at the history of the word "Dude."