Dude!!
A Western definition:
Dude (dood) n.
Usually an Easterner, but it can be used to call anyone obviously unready for the West–such as if a person is wearing street shoes, too-fancy clothes, or unable to ride a horse or track game or make coffee in a tin can. A dude is usually mocked mercilessly (see The Virginian, by Owen Wister). A dude, however, can rise above his dudeness (see Theodore Roosevelt) and in fact, may bring other virtues to the word (see The Big Lebowski).
Legends of America also describes it as originally, a word that means a boil on a tenderfoot’s backside, gotten after riding in a saddle all day for the first time. (I will now call any pimple I get “dude.”)
An example of how to use “dude” in a sentence:
Savvy Westerners don’t walk through a clump of chollo cactus, much less ride through on an ATV. This dude should’ve ridden a horse–they can be smarter than their riders.
Posted on June 3rd, 2009 under CowboyLands Lists, Men Were Men and Women Were Women, Origins and Originals, What Would Gary Cooper Do?, Wild Western Web • Tags: chollo cactus atv, dude, the big lebowski, the virginian, theodore roosevelt, western lingo. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback
