Southern California is worlds away from other regions of the United States. And dude is a southern Californian word that can be translated only with difficulty, even for other Americans.
Dude is symptomatic of the laidback attitude associated with Californians. This may in part come from the sunny weather – as the Albert Hammond / Mike Hazlewood lyric goes, “it never rains in southern California”, and the temperature ranges from a cool 65 degrees to the low 90s throughout the year. There is traffic and some hustle and bustle in the region, and smog on the roads. But the freeways are wide, the cars are new, the people are tanned, and the fresh, clean beaches attract throngs of people who want to lay-out, play volleyball, or of course, surf. The atmosphere is informal, the dress is casual – and the people are never on time (“There was traffic, dude”).
The word has clearly spread far beyond its home territory, not just geographically but in public argument – from Andrew Sullivan’s 2001 article Dude, where’s my drug policy? to Michael Moore’s 2003 bestseller Dude, where’s my country? But much as I’d like to believe that all of America shares the love of dude, it is really a west coast word – as in “surfer dudes”. Who’s ever heard of “city dudes”?
In its southern Californian heartland, dude can mean so many things.
Dude is a person. The earliest definition of dude – a word that appeared in print only in 1878 – was “a man excessively concerned with his clothes, grooming and manners”. It has since become synonymous with guy, or gal. Usually, dude means a younger man or woman, but there can also be older dudes. Dude works as a label for most people, though not all of them. For example, you could say about your boss, “That dude is a real tight wad”; but you wouldn’t really say to your boss “Dude, can I have a raise?” Well, you could, but you probably wouldn’t get one.
Dude is a friend, but in certain circumstances can also mean foe. When one friend calls another, you are likely to hear “Dude?” (with a raised inflection on the last part of the word), to which the friend might reply, “Dude! It’s me!” In that instance, dude expresses familiarity, friendliness, and a certain amount of happiness. But if the context is an unhappy one, dude may not mean friend. Like, walking through a bad neighbourhood, one person may remark to another, “Dude, those were some mean looking dudes!”
Dude is also an exclamation. The sentiments that dude can express are seemingly endless. How does a listener know which dude means what? It is all about inflection and context. For example, if a person wants to express happiness, they can say “Dude!” (DEW-wood). If a person is irritated and wants to tell his friend no way, the dude will likely be much shorter, “Dude, no way” (did, no way).
To express extreme excitement or even surprise, Dude can be elongated to flow over several syllables, for example, “Doo-hooo-hoo-d” where each progressive “hoo” becoming shorter and shorter. I don’t think dude is expressed in anger very often. Though, followed by “come on” it can become a bit forceful, as in, “Dude, come on, you are really getting on my nerves. Stop saying dude.”
