On "dude"

[starfirerapture]

I'm reading an article that I have to lead a discussion for next week about the pragmatic use of the word "dude" as a discourse marker, and I'm finding it amazingly fun. Granted, I really like the individual who wrote it, and have used several of his articles as research for my own research, but still

Comments

[pathwriter]

1.) Maybe once a week, maybe less.

2.) (I'm assuming 1 to be effectively 0)
SO: 1/1
Friend: 2/1
Acquaintance: 3/2
Stranger: 3/2
Sibling: 2/1
Parent: 1/1
Boss: 1/1
Professor: 1/1

3.) I use it almost exclusively to cast a certain gloss of familiarity on interaction with people who do not know me well. My tendency towards complex and formal speech seems to put others on edge, so when I'm with people who are my chronological peers, I slip into employing minor flourishes like "dude" and "man" to distract from my level of diction. It's not that I'm slumming it but merely that I'm trying to put others at ease.

4.) I mostly see it among young males (teenage through early 30s) to indicate the sort of fraternity that still has social constraints involved (OMG gay!). Among older males, it often seems more like a deliberate attempt to seem hip and, as a result, often fails. I have no idea how to interpret it when used among women. It seems awkward to my ear.

5.) 26 and male. Location counts, too, with linguistic research. I'm in central Ohio.

[starfirerapture]

Location does count, and it was asked in the survey, but I'm using this merely as a discussion point, so I felt it was peripheral.

Incidentally, the study took place at U-Pitt about 6 years ago as part of a required project in the undergrad sociolinguistics courses there. (They also looked at 'yinz', but that wasn't relevant to this article.)

[pathwriter]

Given the volatile nature of youth slang, I wonder how much of that research is still reliable now. "Dude" has a fairly long history, stretching back at least a few decades (do you happen to know the origin? I've often wondered), but its usage and meaning has almost certainly changed in that period. Every time I start to think that it's going to become quaint or old-fashioned, though, it seems to persist more or less undeterred. Of course, the term "cat" held on for rather a long time, well past its heyday.

Edit: To my eternal chagrin, I constantly typo "its" as "it's."

[starfirerapture]

It has quite an interesting etymology - I just read about it in the article. Part of my curiosity with it now, though, is if it is indeed changing. We'll see if it's useful.

(And I hear ya on the its thing. I do the same think alllllll the time.)