Sorry I 'duded' you

It’s happened to everybody (well, a lot of people, anyway) at least once or twice. You get a text from someone whose number you don’t recognize, and you text back something familiar like, “Okay, dude.” Only to realize later: That wasn’t a dude. That was a dudette (or whatever the equivalent term is nowadays).

You just “duded” a girl.

Or say you’re at a movie premiere conversing with somebody in the lobby, and someone walks by, gives you a friendly wave and says “Hey.” And you wave back at them and answer, without noticing who it is, “Hey, dude.”

That was no dude. That was a lady.

This happened to someone I know, who “duded” a well-known female columnist without noticing who was passing by — something she regrets, if only because nobody likes to make that kind of mistake.

But it was totally reflexive, I tell her. Gender-neutral. The term has become an all-purpose signifier of familiarity, brotherhood (if not necessarily sisterhood). “Dude” entered the English lexicon during American cowboy days, describing fancy folks from back East who would visit ranches. It made a big resurgence in the ‘60s among hippies and has pretty much hovered around California ever since. Its long-lasting resilience is probably best displayed in the eponymous film Dude, Where’s My Car? (where Sean William Scott and Ashton Kutcher exchange about 50 “dudes” per minute), or the underrated Matt Stone/Trey Parker comedy BASEketball (sample dialogue: “Dude!” “Dude!” “Dude!!” “Dude!!” “Duuuude!!!”). And of course, Jeff Bridges’ character memorably claimed the term as his own in The Big Lebowski, insisting that he is usually called “The Dude, or The Duder, or His Dudeness, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.”

So “dude” is pretty much here to stay.

But is it gender-specific?

Ask Bea Ledesma, noted dude columnist for the STAR, and she’ll say she “dudes” people all the time, boys and girls. She says the distinction is no longer noticed among her generation. In fact, few grammatical distinctions are, I tell her.

So is it even a faux pas nowadays to call a woman “dude”?

The gender line, it seems, was crossed ages ago, as early as the 1950s among the Beatniks. Aerosmith made a similar sociological observation in their ‘80s music video, Dude (Looks Like a Lady). And Wikipedia shows us ample evidence that trans-gender duding has popped up in such cultural benchmarks as Brett Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero, wherein one female character tells her mom, “No way, dude.” (Yes, but does this make it right? For the sake of space, we shall restrict our discussion to the descriptive, rather than prescriptive, use of “dude.”)

Of course, it’s commonplace now for a character like Hurley on Lost to address every single human being he encounters on the island as “dude,” and sometimes even the Black Smoke. So “dude” has become the go-to expression for yet another generation.

But there are a few rules. It’s probably not a good idea to “dude” a person much older than yourself, for obvious reasons. You wouldn’t “Pare!” your lolo, so don’t dude most people at a family reunion. Also, figures of authority generally don’t respond well to “dude,” I’ve noticed. Cops and generals in particular. And college professors probably have gotten used to it in the States, but there’s something not quite right about calling your Philippine teachers “dude.” Or your boss. Unless they ask for it.

Add-ons to dude are generally frowned-upon as well, as when Michael Cera refers to two women at a party in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World as “lady dudes.” That’s just stupid.

“Dude” also has a special purpose in YouTube posts, as when someone has a particularly painful-looking encounter with a metal rail or slab of concrete while riding a skateboard. “Dude…” when used here is a non-gender-specific expression of empathy, or just an expression of amazement that someone would do something that stupid. (“LOL” is optional.)

Still, I don’t know about “duding” the ladies. It took a while and some retraining before I could get used to calling women “man” on the odd, informal occasion. “Dude” somehow conveys the general sense that you’re not a serious person. Or a serious dude. Or dudette. It should probably be restricted to occasions when you’re very comfortable with the dudes — male or female — that you’re hanging with.

Of course, there’s a much bigger problem that sometimes crops up: not knowing whether to “Sir” or Ma’am” the person you meet or speak with on the phone. Gender confusion is a special case, and some have suggested the generic greeting “fellow human” be used when such doubt arises. Others, such as fast-food servers, opt for the all-purpose “Sir/Ma’am” to cover all their bases. But sometimes, even the most careful of us can mistake a high voice for a lady, or a low voice for a dude.

When that happens, dude, you’re in trouble.