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#5907 09/05/00 10:03 AM
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John,
Here's what the word-detective has to say:

For a lightweight word denoting attention to fashion and a devotion to "cool," "dude" has proven remarkably durable. It first showed up in the late 19th century, most probably as a variation on "dud," a Victorian slang term meaning "article of clothing" (still heard today as "duds"). The original dudes were fops and dandies, well-to-do young men who were known for their fancy style of dressing as well as their often dissolute "lifestyles."

A few years later, "dude" made its debut in the Western United States as a disparaging term for any city-dwelling visitor (also known as a "city slicker") to cowboy country. The taming of the West brought a flood of tourists from the East, and "dude ranches" quickly sprang up to give the visitors a taste of "cowpoke life."

In the 1930's, "dude" mutated a bit and came to be used as a general synonym for "guy" or "fellow," without its former connotations of dandyism, and seemed to be slowly fading away. The early 1960's surfer culture of Southern California, however, gave "dude" a shot in the arm, transforming the word into one of its basic units of linguistic exchange. There were no "guys" or "fellows" hanging ten -- only "dudes."

After cruising through the 1960's and 70's as a low-level slang term, "dude" hit the big time again in the 1980's courtesy of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and is still going strong today.
------------------------------------------------

My son practically lived TMNT, which I now realize
is probably why I use the term as much as I do!

Here is how to find the word-detective:

http://www.ipl.org/ref/QUE/PF/etymology.html



#5908 09/05/00 10:20 AM
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http://www.ipl.org/ref/QUE/PF/etymology.html

Cowabunga, dude! Thanks for the great link. I've noticed that links posted here never seem to be clickable, is there a reason for this?



#5909 09/05/00 11:22 AM
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max,

in order to make a link hot, you have to use markup, just like you do with colors, using "url" and "/url" instead of "red" and "/red". so sometimes we get lazy and just paste in the address.

http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/


#5910 09/05/00 01:14 PM
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tsuwm, my friend,

where are your CAPITALS???


#5911 09/05/00 02:05 PM
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william, tsuwm's capitals must be hibernating with yours.

tsuwm, in my case it wasn't laziness (I don't mind using colors), but ignorance. D'you mean to tell me that somehow my computer knows a link is a link, just because I put it in color? This confuses me, 'cause sometimes when I type links in e-mail, they magically come out in color, blue. Will any color work here?


#5912 09/05/00 02:29 PM
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jackie,

whoa there, dudette!
time to refer to the "markup in your posts" writeup:

<b> text </b> = Makes the given text bold.
<email> joe@blow.com </email> = Makes the given email address clickable.
<i> text </i> = Makes the given text italic.
<pre> text </pre> = Surrounds the given text with pre tags.
<quote> text </quote> = Surrounds the given text with blockquote and hr's. This markup tag is used for quoting a reply.
<url> link </url> = Makes the given url into a link.


in all of the above, change <> to square brackets -- that's what I meant by this works just like using colors!




#5913 09/05/00 02:32 PM
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>where are your CAPITALS???

william,

I guess I'm like you in that I only use them to make a POINT or to add emPHAsis -- now if i could only break myself of the habit of uppercasing that pesky personal pronoun....

-tsuwm

p.s. - I blame it all on being exposed to e.e. cummings at an impressionable age.

#5914 09/05/00 03:18 PM
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in all of the above, change <> to square brackets -- that's what I meant by this works just like using colors!

Thank you, my dear! Once again, I have leapt before doing my homework, in my usual lazy fashion.

I like how you put your emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble!


#5915 09/05/00 06:04 PM
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I like how you put your emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble!

When I was about eighteen, some friends and I started speaking to each other that way. It was quite fun, but surprisingly difficult to maintain over an extended conversation.


#5916 09/05/00 06:09 PM
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Thank you, tsuwm. I had read the markup instructions, and suspected that the reason may have been as you suggest, at least for some, but I did nor wish to malign anyone by saying so. I hope you enjoyed your Labour Day. That apparent non-sequitur is an attempted segue into: "how long after mailing a request will one start receiving your wwftd?"


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