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The Allusionist

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A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

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The Allusionist

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Allusionist 137. Dude

June 10, 2021 The Allusionist
A137 Dude logo.jpeg

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Exclamation; sign of agreement OR disapproval; gendered, but circumstantially gender-neutral; term of endearment: 'dude' can do it all! But its connotations of a laid-back, cool, masculine person are only a few decades old; before that, it meant...an uptight city-dwelling tourist?? Dude, seriously!

A version of this episode played on Callie Wright’s podcast Queersplaining; thanks Callie for letting me play it to you with a little extra dudely info added!

FYI there are a few swears.

EXTRA MATERIALS:

  • Read Scott F. Kiesling’s paper on the word ‘Dude’.

  • “For some reason, early in 1883, this inspired someone to call foppish young men of New York City ‘doods,’ with the alternate spelling ‘dudes’ soon becoming the norm.”

  • About the zoot suit riots of 1943.

  • History of the Dude Ranchers Association.

  • ‘King of the dudes’ E. Berry Wall “never drank water - only champagne - and sported a walrus mustache, gleaming monocle, and high, stiff collars encircled by one of his 5,000 flamboyant neckties.”

  • We talked about ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ and who the macaronis were in Answer Me This episode 324.

  • Other relevant Allusionists are Guy and No Title. Also, here’s a Pride playlist of episodes about terms like ‘Pride’, ‘bisexual’ and ‘queer’. And you can hear Callie talking about their roller derby name on Alter Ego.

Want to be barked awake/gently introduced to the day by me saying the word of your choice? Become a patreon at patreon.com/allusionist by the end of this month of June 2021, and I will record the word or short phrase of your choice to use as your phone alert or alarm! All patrons get to choose a word, and all patrons get the recordings of all the patrons’ choices. This is going to be fun. Oh and you’re helping fund the show too, of course.

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
saros

saros, noun, astronomy: a period of about 18 years between repetitions of solar and lunar eclipses. Origin 19th century from Greek, from Babylonian šār(u), ‘3,600 years’, the sense apparently based on a misinterpretation of the number.

saros, noun, astronomy: a period of about 18 years between repetitions of solar and lunar eclipses. Origin 19th century from Greek, from Babylonian šār(u), ‘3,600 years’, the sense apparently based on a misinterpretation of the number.

CREDITS:

  • A version of this episode originally appeared on the podcast Queersplaining by Callie Wright. Listen to the podcast in the places you obtain podcasts; patr(e)nise it at patreon.com/queersplaining, and follow Callie on Twitter @calliegetsit.

  • The Allusionist theme is by Martin Austwick. Listen to his songs at palebirdmusic.com and subscribe to his new podcast Neutrino Watch, where no two downloads are the same.

  • Find this show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.

Back in a couple of weeks - HZ.

In episodes Tags words, language, linguistics, education, comedy, entertainment, society & culture, arts, literature, etymology, lexicon, vocabulary, Helen Zaltzman, Callie Wright, Queersplaining, dude, Yankee Doodle, macaronis, history, slang, terms of endearment, insults, USA, David Bowie, songs, lyrics, movies, films, Easy Rider, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, gender neutral, non binary, gender, guys, Pacheco, zoot suit, Mexican Americans, African Americans, AAVE, surfing, saros
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