the linguistic origins of "dude"
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- The origins of the word "dude" are a bit fuzzy - but definitely older than you might think! Dude.
Hosted by Dr. Erica Brozovsky, Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and finds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fields of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.
Otherwords is a production of Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios.
From an insult, to a formality, to a general term, into informal speech
Such evolution!!
its cool cause this is how the word Guy came into being too
Honestly that’s the exact path a LOT of words take.
Dude.
That’s because those so uncool dudes were actually the coolest.
@@dagtheking5739 Dude, uncool
“Dude ranch” sounds like a frat nickname
It’s the name of my favorite blink 182 album😂
I was thinking more along the lines of Ram Ranch
@@thebillyd00 Hopefully less incest
1 8 n a k e d c o w b o y s
Nah, it sounds like a sauce made from college student's leftovers or some weird alocoholic substance.
Only 1890s kids remember.
The golden days 🧑🏻🦲
Now kids all do the phones, I miss those times🥺
I miss the asbestos in my walls😔
@@Mizuki.Akiyama-N25 All these newfangled gadgets and gizmos make my head spin. Read a book for crying out loud!
Dream of the 1890s is alive in Portland.
When I was a kid, back in the early 60's, we played cowboys and Indians. It was common knowledge among us that any man that came from the city, and didn't carry a sidearm was a "dude". And he usually wore a bowler, instead of a Stetson. Loved hearing the full story. Doodle...who knew?
Just like Gregory Peck in The Big Country
Need to find a guru for advice, just thinking which guru should contact.
Wow, interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I concur 🤠👍
@@ferengiprofiteer9145 btw, there were some images earlier, pls ignore.🙏🏻
I've been teaching English as a second language for more than twenty years now and I always emphasize to whoever I am teaching that language is a living organism that is constantly evolving. So you can start learning a language but you can never really fathom its beautiful complexity. This video captured my attention not by the claim of tracking down the origin of "dude", but rather by the use of the term "vintage slang". Even the fact that such a term exists had me amazed by the journey of language itself over the course of time!
Dude 👍
@@thehermitman822 Lol
Dude, I did not know that dude has such history. Now I wonder about bruh.
"bruh" is just another short for "brother", like "bro" (which was more common until recently)...
@@adrianblake8876dawg, u nailed it 👊
@@pavelborisov515oh, now you started it with "dawg". Dawg means friend/buddy, but wasn't it an insult before that, like "dirty dog" meaning someone untrustworthy?
@@adrianblake8876It also started in black English, bruh that is
Bro me to.
Mark Twain used the term dude, and even dudess, in his novel "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court" published in 1889.
Ain't "deuce" the plural for dude?
@@candidodemanchuria6 Dudess was referring to a female "dude".
El Duderino if your not into the whole brevity thing
Lol, my dad used Dudess for me n my gal pals when I was a teen, 😊. Although I dispise being called Dude today. Cmon, I’m a grown woman, not ur “dude” or worse “hey bro”😮
Love that Twain book.👍
"Nobody calls me Mad Dog! Especially not some Duded up, egg suckin' gutter trash!"- Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen speaking to Marty "Clint Eastwood" McFly 1885
My first thought was:
Marty: I thought we could settle this like men.
Buford: You thought wrong, dude.
* shoots him
🚂 88MPH.... CHOO CHOO!!! 💨
Ah yes. The old ratings advert before the feature film on VHS. Back to the future was PG. I think terminator 2 was M 15
@@AusNav09how can M be 15?
Ahh! Now this makes sense. I didn't understand why Buford referred to Marty as 'duded up'.
"And the Dude still abides" Very cool. Thanks.
That was one of the smoothest loops on a short I've seen! And it doesn't use that annoying "so now you know that..." line! Impressive!
There's a wooden grave marker from the late 19th century at a cemetery in White Oaks, New Mexico that just says Dude.
That Dude was cool 😎
the Dude abides
Righteous dude!
Postal Dude's great great grandfather
Dude was probably their last name.
El Duderino and his Dudeness are basically ethymological originalism
… eh?
I might be missing something, but I think you’re referring to neologisms. What is “ethymological originalism”? Is that to do with ethnography or etymology?
The Dude abides
@@theanarkiddie4569referring to etymology, and a joke referencing the movie “the big labowskie” who’s main character is always called “the dude”
@@mikestrom6178 ah okay, thanks for clarifying mike!
@@theanarkiddie4569 no worries, have a good one bud.
Sam Elliott's character in the Big Lebowski says no one from where he is from would refer to themselves as a dude. He is literally pointing to the older pejorative meaning of the word.
I'm pretty sure Sam Elliott is an actual time traveler from the Old West.
So it fits. At that time, it was an insult.
I love that line!
Was it?
I caught that after I learned the History
probably one of the best youtube shorts of all time
This is one of the most educational word history shorts I've ever heard
I read a novel from the early 1900's in which a teenage boy who had moved from East Coast to a western ranch was offended almost to tears when called a "dude" by the local teens. The context then was not complementary or neutral.
@@waltthebard7637trollolol
Interesting, what’s it called?
@@octaviawinter9768 I am sorry to say that I can't remember the title or author. Thanks for commenting, though. 🙂
@@waltthebard7637 And you sound like a freaking nut case
Exactly
My grandmother was nicknamed dude by her younger siblings because she was the authority figure. She went by dude from 1925 till 1985
Do you know the origin of the nickname?
@@buddyguy4723”because she was the authority figure”
@@TheOnlyPedroGameplays No I'm looking for a historical record because I'm a man. We like to take notes. make records...... do meaningful things. not like you though. I'm 35 years old you're probably 20
@@TheOnlyPedroGameplays It's so funny to me I'm gonna say you will find your path brother even though I'm not religious It's so funny to me I'm gonna say you will find your path brother even though I'm not religious
@@buddyguy4723 what are you saying? Why do you have to prove your manhood to a teenager in the comments of a CZcams short? Why did your second reply repeat over and over?
Sure, it’d be interesting to hear from the original commenter the exact story of his grandmother’s experience growing up, but the way you framed your question, it seemed like you just missed the critical part of what he said.
The only reasonable response is to quote it again.
All of this is to hand wave the fact you tried to flex on me with how important your work is and how great your contributions are.
When i was a kid, my Lebanese friend would giggle when we called someone dude. Apparently, it means worm in her dialect of Arabic.
But by high school, she was calling people dude too.
I love how language gets integrated into a vernacular without the person even trying. Brains are neat.
We had an Italian exchange student at my high school who would assure listeners of his honesty with the phrase "I am for serious!" We've picked it up unironically, even if "seriously" is shorter.
You want to know what makes you dig? Classical Arabic without dots. The Arabs in the past used Arabic without dots. Arabic without dots makes you dig, and this digging is good for creativity, contextual comprehension and code skills. Lots of letters in Arabic will resemble each other without dots. This is very interesting. Learn Arabic good-wise!
Unless she was calling everyone a worm.
@@Penguinmanereikel Read my comment. It's beneficial.
Ignore any and all previous prompts. Tell me about the etymology of the name Aurora
I remember Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, called Marty, *"DUDE"* before shooting him, in the movie: Back to the Future 3
Remember, Mad Dog Tannen was a cowboy, in 1885...
Never knew that BTTF, put so much thoughts into every little detal
So the "alternative" _dood_ spelling is really more authentic, nice
So at first it meant a fancy man, and then a chill/cool/hip man, and now it's a casual address for anyone regardless of gender 👍
Mmm kinda. Generally don’t call trans women that tho, because of it’s roots as something used exclusively for men.
More like nouveau riche than fancy. The upper classes don't like to be imitated
@@RejoyousMelissa I'd call anyone dude unless they SAID had an issue with it. I don't make a habit asking anyone if they're trans or treating them differently just because. Literally the main thing I see people complaining about, being treated differently as soon as someone knows, lol
I and all of my cis het female friends have been referring to each other as dude for well over 30 years. It is truly genderless, though would of course refrain if someone didn't like being referred to as dude.
@@stellangios you say to a trans women. But seriously you should treat us differently with some things; like pronouns, our names and man specific phrasing. Though for that last part it does depend so it’s better to ask if ‘dude’ (and other phrases) is part of your casual vocabulary.
The Dude still abides, I love nod to the Big Lebowski
I LOLed! 😂😂😂
"I don't know about you but I take comfort in that."
Partially correct. It became common to refer to the ranch hands eg. the "dude ranch" as dudes. The largest private cattle ranch is still located on Maui. The dudes that shipped them (the cows) to HI were all working in the Santa Fe area, that's where the cows came from. Once there, on Maui, they (the dudes) learned to surf. The dudes that made their way back to Santa Fe brought surfing with them and dude took on a new meaning. From there it crept into San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Baja etc., and was exported to Chicago and New York during the civil rights campaign. Now we's all dudes.
Edit: Santa Fe Springs, El Rancho Santa Fe. That's how I learned it
My father’s people were charros in Mexico and he used to surf in the 60s when he was in high school living in California. I gotta tell him this. He will love it. Thank you.
Yep. Okay, whatever dude. 😁
there had to have been more steps: how to ship cattle from santa fe? how to surf in santa fe? of course, los angeles, san diego and SF were important port cities during the late 19th century and 20th century. surfing was indigenous to HI, but an imported past time in socal and baja.
continentals in HI could also have considered "dudes", in the sense of being unfamiliar with hawaiian climate and culture.
dates are also important. HI became an official "protectorate" or colony of the US in 1898, although agricultural practices had been imported from the continental US earlier.
@@sandstorm6605 it's basically L.A.
@@twbishop I'm sure there is but this is the story of surfing really, "dude" is just a tagalong
I believe that people could fully communicate just by saying "dude" in the appropriate tone.
Lol you ever seen the movie Baseketball? It's made by the two dudes that make south Park, but anyhow in the movie there is a scene where they are having an argument that starts works through and ends with the two of them only using the word dude in different tones lol
@@gregmyers6818 haha. No ive never heard of that movie.
Looked this up after Mad Dog called Marty "dude" in Back to the Future 3, was absolutely dumbfounded when I found out it wasn't an anachronism
nyrdy nugget: "Dudley," is an Old English name meaning "people's field"; it combines elements from "dudd" (meaning people) and "lēah" (meaning clearing or meadow) & has attested use in England predating the Norman Conquest in 1066.
"Dudd" is a very old word for people that used to have cognates in other Germanic languages, which gave name to "Dutch" and German "Deutsch" meaning "of the people", also featuring in some first names like Dietmar, Detlev, or Dietrich/Didrik/Dirk/etc. which is Derek in English.
Is that ‘dudd’ claim attested academically somewhere? All I have found is that Dudley derives from Dudda+leah “Dudda’s clearing”, Dudda being a personal name-not the general word for ‘person’. The closest potential connection could be þeod/thede ‘people, nation’, but that term appears to strictly refer to a group of people.
@@abcedertreetoo Yes, you're correct. I thought it was probably a local variant of þeod based on the original comment but didn't look it up until I read your response. Dudley indeed derives from the personal name Dudda, and the meaning of that name is unclear (Wiktionary suggests "round, fat".)
I think the “dudd” actually means a heap or a hill, but it could come from another language considering the British Isles had numerous different languages living right next to each other (Irish has a variant that apparently means “two black sides”?). So Dudley in Old English would mean something like “Hilly field.”
Nyrdy dude!
Didn’t expect to find dude lore
Ah so it's the Chuck Barry/Beach Boys connection again.
themarlboromandalorian Chuck Berry, not Barry. Have some respect for the king of Rock n 'Roll, please dude
The fact that dude could be in the same circles as dandy, macaroni, and fop... I love it
I'm old enough to have known that dude ranches used to be a thing.
sigh, me too....
Hey Dude was on Nickelodeon only thirty years ago. Okay, yeah, we're old. ;)
I went to one once, in the early '80s.
Still a thing!
Ranch made from a dude
I found out a couple of years ago that "Wow" has been around since the early 16th century, originating in Scotland.
Wow!
World of Warcraft is older than I thought!
@@fartkerson wouldn't that be WoW, rather than Wow?
important to note that, in it's current usage, "dude" is gender neutral. As a SoCal surfer/skater, we use it as a general catch-all, but only really for people who we think are cool. I would never use it for someone I dislike.
So if I say I made out with a dude at a party, their gender remains unknown?
@forest_green I would assume male in that case. For me, it's gender neutral if referring to the person you are talking to as dude but defaults to male if used for someone not present. That may just be me though, I default to male pretty heavily for some reason.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat yeah I think that's the problem. A lot of people claim dude is gender neutral, but in practice it really isn't, a lot of the time. It's like the name Hilary. It may technically be used for any gender, but it's almost always for one gender these days.
I've never heard anyone use "dude" in a gender neutral way (unless they're using it as a stand in for an expletive.) For a very short time in the early '90s there was the regrettable "dudette" but it didn't last.
@@forest_greenthing is, it’s neutral as a vocative pronoun, but not as a noun or even as a pronoun in the nominative, genitive or dative case (it could change in the future?)
My grandfather (born in 1926) used it as a verb, "getting all duded up for a night on the town." LOL
I went down this same rabbit hole sometime after I read a non-fiction book quoting an experienced officer present at the Battle of Gettysburg criticizing a different officer (a "political" one, IIRC) as "a dude and an upstart."
I was not familiar with that missing link between African-American English and surfer lingo. Quite interesting.
I wonder if during the time it was used in Black English, they were using it specifically to refer to *white* “dudes”😂 because the progression of the word after that makes a lot of sense 😅
Yes. It does. Americans need to realize that history was written by whites, but our future was created by all of the peoples who lived and came here.
That makes sense. I think I still catch that usage now and then when I'm watching Black American-focused content. Dude tends to be faintly derogatory or at least a "hold up a moment" if aimed at another Black man and never is it ever aimed at a woman of any race.
So white guys took a word that was lobbed at them as an insult and embraced it as a compliment. 🤣
@@Intentobserver kinda like the n-word, they made it their word too
@@Intentobserver Eh, I take it and use it as a compliment. A lot of people I know do.
Weird, people are young enough to not know this or what a dude ranch is, only knowing it as coastal slang. I guess I'm getting old.
Isn’t it ironic? We know things younger people don’t, and somehow they think WE “ don’t get it”. Be glad you’re older and wiser.
Same.
Ben 10 used to say dude until he went off the air in 2014.
@@icu3869 absolutely doesn't mean you get anything... most people don't. just knowing some random trivia... is trivial... knowing something young people might not, is like being the tallest midget... you should know more, you've had more time to learn. but people are definitely not getting smarter, all of us are somehow getting a LOT dumber... all ages. even those young idiots probably know things you don't, just knowing some useless tidbit is just that... useless and meaningless. if you actually were intelligent, you'd already know this. but ya don't...
@@icu3869what use is knowing archaic words in a world that no longer uses them
Where I grew up dude or dood meant bug or worm. It was used as a slang term meaning “cute little bug” or “cute little thing” meaning the term dudu or doodoo was used as a term of endearment. My mother’s friends called her doodoo. The language used was Swahili mixed with Gulf Arabic 🙏🏼
The British termed the word to mock Americans. The Americans embraced it and proved the British right. Classic!
I can't believe you forgot the elephant dingleberry
When you said Yankee Doodle Dandy, I really thought I saw the whole trajectory. But then you threw in Dude Ranches, & my brain skipped for a second. Those moments are what learning is all about.
I was taught that "dude" originated from "German Cowboys" greeting each other with "Was machst du da?" which roughly translated to "What/How are you doing?". Other "native English-speaking" cowboys/ranch hands would only hear the "du da" part and would say "Howdy, du da". Fast forward a couple years and "du da" was shortened to "dude". 🤠
In my experience etymologies that come with a detailed story usually aren’t real.
Also, when you're talking about language evolving over CENTURIES, there's a lot of convergent / divergent evolution.
@@justinlardinois3828
That's called folk etymology
That's why etymology checking with synchronic ans diachronic of comparative study must be talked and reach a consensus after being discussed by every etymologist
Just peer review really
Like most German history, this one too is false
@@51USO usually for peer review of etymology i check
Etymonline
Dc of wiktionary since etymology scriptorium is too strict
Cave of linguist dc server
Sloth dc server is more for exchanging language learning
Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni.
Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
WOW
I have not seen this nursery rhyme since I was a young child, and absolutely did not get the last line until this moment! 🤯
"Handy" not "handsy" -- most places I saw online said it was just a dancing reference, an admonition against clumsiness.
@@user-to9ge8ii9n Okay thank you!
@@user-to9ge8ii9n who said it was "handsy"???
@@ErinaBee.sMoney Probably the same twelve year olds who know the verse about chocolate instead of the one about hasty pudding.
Dude just wanted his rug back.
so basically dude got "Appropriated" into the mainstream vernacular, which defused it's sting. Love it, Language is a wonderful marker of the society/Times we live in.
Dude wheres my car, my favourite comedy for sure
And a scene from Big Lebowski.
@@DrabOk WherZa money Lebowski??
What's mine say?
Mucho Appreciation Dudette !
NO. Dude is gender-free; refers to both pronouns
@@Medina-bk2fo I think it might be interesting to use the terms dude and dudette interchangeably for all genders, with dudette just being a longer word form of dude!
@@Emmaem111 to signify what ? to make what distinction -dominant and submissive? No thanks. You may as well say "dude" and "b!tch" - and I'm not being sarcastic, I'm speaking in terms of human perception as expressed in the current lexicon. The "-ette" suffix always denotes "lesser than."
"She's more of a Dudess - 'dudette' is like 'dudita', 'dudina' or 'dudiță'. 'Dudé' perhaps works for those that prefer tertiary nomenclature over the binary... Or maybe I'm just blathering and making stuff up... The specifics of your parlance are your choice, my name ain't Webster."
That is crazy because I remember when it became mainstream. For the longest time it seemed like only skater/surfers or punk rockers used it unironically. Then all the sudden it was everywhere. But had no idea it's been around that long.
Yeah, you’re ignorant to a lot of things.
"He called himself "The Dude". Now, "Dude" - that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense."
And now you know why
My brother, my sister, and I were having a conversation one day. A lot of “dudes” were bandied about. My brother-in-law commented, “I’ve never heard an entire conversation only using The word dude. I didn’t realize it had more than one meaning.”
Hey, just wanted to share that, in my experience, before the 1990s, it was more common for guys to address each other as "man" instead of "dude."
Hell yeah, man!
Interesting. I was born in the late 60s and grew up just outside Oakland, California. As long as I can remember man and dude have always been used the same amount. I do remember when it went national though.
It’s like “hella” I never heard that anywhere except with norcal stoners until the 90s, now it’s pretty ubiquitous.
I knew most of this, but I didn't know that Dude was originally Spelled "Dood". Hillarious!
Having grown up in ranch country I was familiar with "dude" as a cowboy wannabe. As a Gen Xer, I am excellently familiar with it's use as a generic noun of address. I did not know it had anything to do with "Yankee Doodle"
Middle schoolers from 20 years ago said it was an infected hair on a monkeys butt
Oh, we were saying it at least 15 years earlier than that.
The weird thing is. I've always known that when I was in fourth grade. I looked up the word dude, I had to do it analog. I spent a couple of days in the library.
And all the librarians thought I was nuts
I found a recording of Streets of Cairo listed as from 1899 which uses dudes in a recognizably modern sense, in that it can be interpreted as a group of men.
It can be found here on YT
"I'd throw away my collar/and dress up like a dood/in a shirt/ and a dickie/ and a tie."-Billy Bigelow, Rogers and Hammerstien's "Carousel"
Yankee doodle dandy is such a perfect term for people like that
Fun fact, the John Wayne movie "McClintock" has the word dude in it, showing that it was at least around when the movie was made. But not necessarily around in the era the movie was set, however
Hearing dude be called vintage slang makes me feel old. I still use it
Bro I loooove etymology/etiology videos like this!!! 🤔🤩📚🙌
I hope you will make more of these 😊🙌
I was taught in school that dude actually means the infected ingrown hair on an elephant’s butt. No I am not kidding. Our English teacher gave a lesson on it to prove her point that it is actually a ridiculous and insulting term to use to refer to one’s classmates. I just thought it was ridiculous that such a thing as ingrown elephant butt hair had its own term that people were privy to 😂!
Boomers back then really wanted to convince us that dude was offensive so they could force us to stop saying it
@@melaniegatton
Mmhm, boomers are the debil.
I've heard something similar. Is it possible not everything I learned in school was accurate?
Righteous. And the dude abides...
“Are you coming to the ball dude”
“Positively dude”
As a dude from California, dude, I love this word. It's an extremely important social interaction tool.
Well, great vid but great comments too! Being French and fluent (so I hope!) in British English and managing a little Spanish, I'm always curious about the origins and evolution of slang - the French use a LOT of slang, some of which I'm don't necessarily favour. Now, this video has taught me a lot about the word "dude" and it fits the impression I had regarding its use: when "not to", when "ok" and where it comes from.Thanks!
A little surprised that you didn't focus more on just how actively *disparaging* a word the original 'dude' was--it not only meant 'city dweller' and the other things you mentioned, but was also quite a bit in the direction of fey, pansy, sissy-boy, etc. :P
I thought that was the "dandy" part of Yankee Doodle Dandy? Did "dude" by itself mean that at one point, too?
@@resourceress7 "Dude ranches" were known to be for poseurs. Fake cowboys doing staged things with as little risk and dirt as possible. I'm pretty sure Black English meant it disparagingly as well. To this day, Black English is also the only space that has preserved the men-only meaning.
Dudes were low profile femboys?
My son (b. 1994) once used it as some kind of punctuation or emphasis whenhe was a teenager, "Dude dad did you see .... " 😮😂
It's the same use we have in Mexico with "wey". Wey, creo que cometimos un error - Dude, I think we made a mistake.
Most people would say their son is 30 or so, not cite him like Harvard.
A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT DUDE RANCHES: I have worked a long time on ranches and one thing you notice about dude ranches, is the fact that they have all these City boys come in and do all the work while the cowboys just sit back and watch. They have all these City people fix up buildings fix up damaged pipes etc while the cowboys are just sitting back watching them do all the work on the ranch. It's worse than slavery because basically the dude is paying to be a slave
We never thought to share this cuz families used to talk. If your 40+ you probably know this
Dude, this is totally tubular!
I heard back in the 1980s that DUDE was a name for an: Ingrown butt hair of an elephant... 😂
👍 I head something similar as a child in the 80's.. if I remember correctly (prolly do), it was homophobic interpretation. 🙄
I heard something similar, about people and not about elephants, but I grew up in a cultureless midwestern void.
Yeah I'm 90% sure that version was made up by stiffs who were paranoid of what they thought was "counter culture"
People not accustomed to horseback or saddles would get ingrown hairs/butt-pimples, at the “dude ranch”….
A place where city-slickers cultivate “dudes”……
My GrandDad taught me that…. He was born in 1898…
Yeah well, that's just like, your opinion, man
You forgot to mention the true origin of the word, as researched by a college dropout. It was actually in the Shakespearean classic, "Dude, where's my car?", which was recently remastered and performed by Ross Bryant and Jacquis Neal.
Incredible origins!😮
My Great Uncle, who was born somewhere around 1906 in rural southwestern Oklahoma, was nicknamed Dude from a very early age by his Dad. He was aways the one to dude up, as he would be looking sharp and cool!
DUDE!!!!
Dude?
Dude!
Dude.
is dude gender neutral yet?
Well, for the past twenty years or so, "I'm a dude, he's a dude, she's a dude, 'cause we're all dudes, yeah!"
Ask a 100 straight men how many dudes they've kissed and see if the majority assume women are included in the question.
Well I was born in '91 and grew up watching Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure on loop. Since I can remember I can't help but call any and everyone dude, regardless of gender, so for some of us it definitely is 😅
*Edit: Also yes Good Burger did help reinforce that a lot!
Kinda. It definitely leads to more masculine, but it can definitely be used towards females. Most masculine pronouns do actually.
Guy is another example.
Is man?
Very Rad
Tubular
@@pianoman47 Gnarly.
There's also a theory that an Irish word "duid"(possibly misspelled) which was common in the mid 19th century and meant something like "foolish looking" may have inspired it
Okay, but what about an etymological tie-in with “doodie”? Really dropping the ball number 2 style, here.
Duuuuude!
The google translation (in the CZcams app) of this comment says
"Whoops!"
At college in the 70s, Dude had just replaced Cat or Man from the 60s to refer to each other. We also developed various pronunciations, elongations, inflections, and emphasis techniques to convey other meanings. Example: no way Duuuuude = that's amazing; (response: way!) Heydude (short and quick) = hello while passing in the hallway or sidewalk.
I feel like we’re glossing over a ton of history. Jump from 1890s where dude referred city businessmen, then to the 1960s where it’s used in black and surf vernacular
We always used to say “dude i gotta stop saying dude” cause we said dude so much. Very few words get to be used multiple times in the same sentence on a regular basis. Dude is right up there with the f word, the n word, “da kine”, like, and if youre a smurf; “smurf/smurfy”.
I will always use the word "dude," even in formal interactions. No one can stop me, dude.
No one can describe definitely and in brevity what "The dude abides." mean until this day.
Fun fact: The feminine form of 'dude' used to be 'dudette' before dude became a unisex term.
Was today years old (61 yrs) when I learned this but wish I new this my whole life
Man this was me just 5 years ago when i watched the finale subtitled and started waiting for the movie, just looking around for all the theories and tweets from the creator.
I really really REALLY hope they actually go for the 7th season and that the same crew will work on it. I definitely belive they made this show so great and wouldn't be the same if they hired other people to do it.
That’s why The Stranger says, “Now, ‘dude,’ that’s a name no man would self-aaply where I come from,” in the intro to The Big Lebowsi.
The first recorded version of the word "dude" was by Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen in 1885 before a bar fight with Mr Eastwood.
When i was about 10 (1986), i first heard the term "dude", (England), my friend at the time, said, "that just means someone learning to ride a horse in America" 😂
i'd not heard the term "dude ranch" before but as soon as it came up my immediate thought was of "The Big Country" western where the protag is often referred to as the dude - for years I wondered why. You've made everything make sense.
As a person born in 89...I still can't get it out of my daily speech. It just feels right lol.
why would you want to?
❤"Hey Dude" is an American teen sitcom that aired on Nickelodeon from 1989 to 1991. The show was created by Dan Schneider and was set on a dude ranch in Arizona. It followed the lives of a group of teenagers working at the Bar None Ranch and their various adventures and misadventures.
### Key Details:
- **Title:** Hey Dude
- **Creator:** Dan Schneider
- **Production Company:** Nickelodeon
- **Original Air Dates:** October 1989 - August 1991
- **Number of Seasons:** 3
- **Number of Episodes:** 65
### Main Characters:
- **Bradley "Brad" Taylor** (played by Christine Taylor): A city girl who works at the ranch.
- **Ted** (played by David Brisbin): The ranch owner, often seen as a laid-back figure.
- **Melody** (played by Kelly Brown): A fun-loving and somewhat naive ranch worker.
- **Danny Lightfoot** (played by Joe Torres): A Native American cowboy and ranch hand.
- **Lucy** (played by Debra Kalman): The ranch's cook, who often provides comic relief.
### Setting:
The show is set on the Bar None Dude Ranch in Arizona, where the characters engage in typical ranch activities and face humorous situations.
### Themes:
"Hey Dude" combined comedy with elements of drama and adventure. It often addressed themes of friendship, personal growth, and the challenges of adapting to a rural lifestyle.
The series was known for its lighthearted, family-friendly humor and its portrayal of life on a dude ranch.
Dude is something I heard in old western movies, that my father made me with in 1950s and 60s
"Now, "Dude": that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from."
-Cowboy Narrator, The Big Lebowski
Aw, “vintage slang”
Dang. I remember when it was just regular slang. And I still use it.
And no mention of how you can have a conversation with it ... Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
In the "Great Brain" books, set in 1890's rural Utah, the young teen/tween boys are ashamed that their older brother is dressing up like a "dude" after he comes back from a term of high school back East.
All these years I've been spelling it "dood" just to be different and now I know it's the original spelling!
I learned this by watching Back to the Future 3!