What’s Up With That Word?

Dude, I’m doing some research.
What on, dude?
“Dude.”
Dude?
“Dude”—as in, where did the word “dude” come from? Who uses it? When and how do they use it?
Dude!

Scott F. Kiesling, a professor in Pitt’s Department of Linguistics, investigated the origins and usage of the “D” word and published his findings in “Dude,” an article in the linguistics journal American Speech (Duke University Press, Fall 2004).

A sociolinguist specializing in language and gender, Kiesling often heard “dude” spoken by the fraternity members whose conversations he tape recorded while gathering data for his Ph.D. dissertation, “Language, Gender, and Power in Fraternity Men’s Discourse.” Having been a fraternity member as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Kiesling was able to gain access to another chapter of the same national fraternity to conduct his research. Full Article...

Norm Wuerthele/Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Undergraduate Discovers New Genus,
Species of Ancient Meat-Eating Amphibian

While on a geology class trip nearly a year ago, a Pitt undergraduate came across a previously unknown genus and species of a 300-million-year-old amphibian. This academic year he has reveled in the attention he received—newspaper, radio, and television coverage worldwide—for his discovery.

Adam Striegel, a Pitt senior liberal studies major from White Oak, Pa., found a fossilized skull of an ancient meat-eating amphibian with a vicious set of teeth. The fossil is only the third 300-million-year-old amphibian skull ever found in the world, according to David Berman, curator of vertebrate paleontology at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Full Article...