dude

Venerable and versatile multiuse expression; a longtime favorite for American surfers, skaters, stoners, bikers, punks, and slackers, and more recently a linguistic hit across the entire youth-culture spectrum; "the universal pronoun," as defined in the online Urban Dictionary. "Dude" was originally a synonym for "rags" ("dudesman" meant "scarecrow"), then became a derogatory Old West word for "da...