Thursday, December 09, 2004

Like, wow, man!

...
A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word 'dude,' contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers.
...
Cool solidarity is especially important to young men who are under social pressure to be close with other young men, but not enough to be suspected as gay.

In other words: Close, dude, but not that close.
...
To decode the word's meaning, Kiesling listened to conversations with fraternity members he taped in 1993. He also had undergraduate students in sociolinguistics classes in 2001 and 2002 write down the first 20 times they heard "dude" and who said it during a three-day period. Link



Over the years, in the interest of staying current, I have tried to take Cool Lessons.
According to the well-meaning feedback of people who know me, I have been failing miserably for most of my adult life. But I still have an interest. I still try to pay attention. Cool is very important to me. It is.
I once asked one of my black employees what I was doing wrong and he told me "Eat more chicken."

It's a slow day for blogging. Again, thanks Doc.


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