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15 variations on the meaning of the word "dude"
I was sort of a linguistic snob in college. I preferred big words to small, little-known words to ubiquitous, and archaic to colloquial. The present-day me would have never hung out with the college version of me. For example, when I wanted to get dinner, I’d go down the hall to one of my friend’s rooms and say, “Jeremy, do you want to go get some supper now? They have pizza tonight.” Nearly 20 syllables! Meanwhile, Jeremy’s roommate, a thick-necked kid they called Alfie with a tattoo of a .22 caliber on his forearm was able to say the exact same thing as me using precisely TWO syllables: “Dude, za?”
Though I’d never admit it to myself back then, Alfie taught me a very important lesson that semester: words and syllables don’t matter as much as inflection, context and intention. Don’t believe me? Check out the following 15 variations on the word dude that I’ve recorded.
Great job!
Is that you?
What are you doing?
Good to see you!
We scored!
Why did you do that?!
Wait, you did this?
Cut it out!
Hey, I'm over here!
Time to wake up...
You're really getting on my nerves!
Hi, what's up?
You can't be serious!
Did I just see who I thought I saw?
You're such a bot!
Think I left any off the list? Feel free to include your own SoundCloud recording in the comments and maybe if we get enough of them, I'll even turn them into a post later this week!