The Daily News
1 Dude.
2 That's the first word that popped into my head this morning.
3 After a jaunty weekend, I woke at 5:17 this morning knowing darned well it was Monday.
4 Dude.
5 That's possibly the most intelligent word that ever morphed into mainstream.
6 Dude.
7 It sets everything straight.
8 Didn't a dude used to be a fancy dresser in the Wild West?
9 Now it's a word that sets you straight. It translates roughly to "focus."
10 And it's a dandy term of endearment.
11 When I refer to someone as "dude" it means they're on the extreme high end on my cool list.
12 I almost figured that to be an adverb.
13 Okay grammar snobs. It's a where.
14 When it is a term of endearment.
15 When it means "focus" it's an intransitive verb.
16 You understood.
17 If you wish to understand what an intransitive verb is, you would need to contact Ken Ponticelli.
18 That guy is a grammarian extraordinaire.
19 Here is a brief history of the word, copied and pasted from the-source-you-are-never-to-use-but-that-everyone-uses-anyway Wiki:
History
The word may have derived from the Scottish term for clothes, duddies.[5] The term "dude" was first used in print in 1876, 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 a new word for "dandy" – an extremely well-dressed male, a man who paid particular importance to how he appeared. The café societyand Bright Young Things of the late 1800s and early 1900s were populated with dudes. Young men of leisure vied to show off their wardrobes. The best known of this type is probably Evander Berry Wall, who was dubbed "King of the Dudes" in 1880s New York and maintained a reputation for sartorial splendor all his life. This version of the word is still in occasional 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 large city. 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 from the city.
The implication of an individual who is unfamiliar with the demands of life outside of urban 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 the expansion 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, a guest ranch catering to urbanites seeking more rural experiences. Dude ranches began to appear in the American West in the early 20th century, for wealthy Easterners who came to experience the "cowboy life." The implicit contrast is with those persons accustomed to a given frontier, agricultural, mining, or other rural setting. 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 contemporary American 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 position on 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 or fella. The female equivalent was "dudette" or "dudess," but these have both fallen into disuse, 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 in surfer 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]
20
21 Best post in the history of the DN.
22 You can't make this stuff up.
23 "Dude" this morning translated roughly into "It's Monday."
24 What was the first thing I did? Excluding the obvious making of coffee and grabbing the Merc, I cut my nails.
25 Sometimes I'm such a graceful lady.
26 I get it from my Mom, my two sisters and no brothers, and my wife and two daughters and no sons.
27
28 Anybody lookin'?
29 I went to Halloween one year as Bat Masterson, who was a classic dude.
30
32 That's my sister Linda on the left, me in the middle, and my sister Gayle on the right. Kudos to Linda for posting this on Facebook. I think I was 30.
33 No lie.
34 Best pic ever posted on the DN. Or possibly even Facebook for that matter. Linda is a photo artiste.
35 I'm reasonably sure that my fingernails were dainty that night.
36 I'm also pretty sure there is a gun in the tip of that cane, because Masterson had one in his.
37 Sunrise, sunset.
38
39 Sorry.
40 Fiddler was on last night. You don't not watch Fiddler, if for nothing else, the wedding scene.
41
42 For the record, my Mom banned the song Sunrise, Sunset from ever playing in her house.
43 My first encounter with maternal censorship.
44 Made her too sad.
45
46 Ma.
47 That was by design.
48
49 Yeesh.
50 Musicals. I swear. Don't get me goin'.
51 Doorway to Albee.
52 Dude.
53 It's Monday.
54 Focus.
55 I gottago.
56 See you again.
57 Peace.
~H~
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