Yo, Dude!

"Or el Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing."

What is it about the word dude? Slang usually has a really short half life. As soon as your mother says it, or worse, some teacher trying to be cool (a rare slang word that has lasted virtually forever), it's over. But dude is different. As Robert Lane Greene explains,

Slang rarely has staying power. That is part of its charm; the young create it, and discard it as soon as it becomes too common. Slang is a subset of in-group language, and once that gets taken up by the out-group, it’s time for the in-crowd to come up with something new. So the long life of one piece of American slang, albeit in many different guises, is striking. Or as the kids would say, “Dude!”

The history of the word goes back to Victorian England, of all places, before wending its way out to the wild west and, eventually, The Big Lebowski. You should read this article, dude. Or, we could put it another way. Dude, you should read this article:

Hey Dude.