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Herb Benham: Dude, where's my proper language?
| Wednesday, Jul 23 2008 2:57 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jul 24 2008 8:23 AM
Be careful when you enter a room. Tread cautiously. Especially if teenage boys are present and in conversation.
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You might enter as a mother, a father or a sister and leave as a dude.
This summer, my nephew Chris is living with us. He has a painting business. This makes his father, who lives in the Bay Area, happy because his son can now experience a Bakersfield summer rather than something that has the fragrance of the ocean in it.
Chris and Thomas, our youngest, are usually articulate. They also are generally delighted in one another's company as are many cousins.
So delighted that when they come together after the day’s conclusion of summer jobs, there is a high-spiritedness that manifests itself into a quick round of “dude,” or in some cases, “Hey dude.”
The word “dude” is not surprising as a form of address. The late Norm Hoffman, the fitness guru and BC professor, would, as a matter of course and affection, call friends “dude,” but there was a difference.
Hoffman would use “dude” in the greeting, in other words the first part of the conversation; then, if it was necessary, revert to the name of the person to whom he was speaking.
This is not the case with Christopher and Thomas, nor with any of their friends who pair off in what turns into a high-energy exchange.
“High energy,” because after the initial pair of “dudes,” the conversation picks up steam and in less than a minute, one dude has become two, two, four and then, it’s a dude frenzy.
The dudes come as relentlessly as machine-gun fire. The cousins are like a pair of gunfighters, both guns unholstered and blazing, firing away at each other as if dudes were bullets and there was an infinite supply.
The air is painted with a rainbow of dudes — high, low and in between. By the end of the conversation, the cousins have been thoroughly duded up.
It's almost competitive and given the skill and alacrity with which the dudes are delivered, is not far from an exhibition sport in the Olympics.
Observers are advised to remain clear of the exchange at the risk of, either purposefully or accidentally, being duded up themselves.
No one can keep up the frenetic pace, and after a minute or two, the hail of dudes slows down and then ceases.
The conversation may stop but something has happened. Important information has been exchanged, some of it having to do with being dude-worthy.
There is a brotherhood of dudes and you are either in or you are not, and if you are not there is no formal application process.
Best to be an observer. Best, however, to stand clear, so that one does not risk being caught in the crossfire.
Really. Dude.
Opinions expressed are those of Herb Benham, not The Californian.