Page 7 - Language Facts

A female dude is a dudine, not a dudette!

The Merriam-Webster dictionary is as official as it gets. It says dude can mean several things. First, it can mean a man extremely fastidious in dress and manner. It also means a city dweller unfamiliar with life on the range. Are many people familiar with the range these days? It also simply refers to a guy or a fellow. It was first seen in literature in 1883 making fun of fashion saying “dude” instead of “dud”. It is thought to be of Scottish origin.

The female version of dude is often said to be dudette and often used as so. Again, Merriam-Webster has the real answer, though. The fine dictionary says that the female version of a dude is actually a dudine. Your world is shaken at this point, and I understand why. Don’t worry, though. Dude is used as slang, and dudette is known and used in a slang manner, too. So, rest assured you can still say dudette and no one will get confused. Wow people at sophisticated parties and tell them the female version of dude is actually dudine. It’ll really impress the crowds.

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When you use &%#@$ instead of swear words, it's called a Grawlix

Grawlix is a term used to describe the symbol strings of typography that replace profanity, such as “%*#$*@”. The term was coined by Mort Walker, an American cartoonist, in 1964. Walker is best known for creating the comic strip Beetle Bailey in 1950 and Hi and Lois in 1954. He was actually born in El Dorado, Kansas in 1923 and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Six of his nine children still work for him in his Connecticut studio where he continues to supervise at the ripe age of 89 years old.

In his book The Lexicon of Comicana, written in 1980 as a satirical look at the devices cartoonists use, Walker invented a vocabulary called Symbolia. For example, Walker coined the term "squeans" to describe the starbursts and little circles that appear around a cartoon's head to indicate intoxication.

The typographical symbols that stand for profanities, which appear in dialogue balloons in the place of actual dialogue, Walker called "grawlixes."

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Humans haven't been reading silently for that long!

It seems strange to think about, but silent reading is a relatively new development in human history. Ancient ready was oral: aloud, in groups or individually in a muffled voice. One of the big reasons for silent reading coming about was a change in writing style. Before, words were not separated when written down; once we invented spaces, we started reading silently.

The first manuscripts with separated words come from Irish scribes in the 7th and 8th centuries, but not spread to Europe until the late 10th century. Why did it take so long? Reading was such a social activity, that making things easier to reed and having more people be able to read were not seen as advantages. For more information, check the source!

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The original pronunciation of Shakespeare’s work reveals hidden messages!

The Globe Theater specializes in performing Shakespearian plays in their original pronunciation (OP). Although they opened in 1994, it took a while for them to mount these plays because they thought people wouldn't understand 400-year-old accents. However, after they performed Romeo and Juliet in OP, they became quite popular and they haven't looked back.

How did they revive a 400-year-old English accent? First, they looked at contemporary writing. Reviews and other writings about Shakespeare's plays would comment and make observations on how certain words rhymed and played together. The second is through spelling. Finally, there are rhymes and puns that don't work in our modern English, but do in Old English. The pronunciation itself reveals jokes and messages that are hidden to us now! If you want to learn some of them, check the source below.

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