dude

A blog of Dude? Dude.

This is a blog about dude. The word. The only actual dude here is the author, Scott Kiesling, who is a linguist and writes about words and other parts of language. This dude is especially interested in how things like people’s gender affect the way they talk. Or, to look at it differently, how folks use language to do things socially, like be more or less masculine. Speaking of masculinity, that happens to be one of the things I’m most interested in. In other parts of this site, you can see links to my more sober and serious prose.
Why am I writing about dude? About 10 years ago, I wrote an academic article on the subject. But it’s now a bit aged, and also written pretty dryly, and new media have arisen to make communicating about language more interesting (heck, even blogs seem pretty old fashioned now). More importantly, there are things to write about that aren’t really part of that article. Like the cult film The Big Lebowski. And other address terms like bro and girlfriend.
I’ve titled this “Dude of the Day,” but in true dude spirit I don’t really plan on posting every day; I just like the sound of “Dude of the Day” better than “Dude of the Week.” If anyone has a better idea for a title, feel free to suggest one. In any case, I will actually try to post every week, on Tuesdays. Or more often if something strikes me, or later if I don’t get around to it.
Please leave topics or questions in the comments! People seem to love to talk about dude, and sometimes the questions are surprising. If you hear an example, put it in the comments and I’ll do my best to riff on it. Starting a post with an observation of a dude 'in the wild’ is probably the most useful, and fun.