Word Confusion: Dud versus Dude

Posted November 10, 2022 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

Revised as of
7 Jan 2023

I always read the reviews on Amazon, as they’re real-world experiences. And I don’t allow all the spelling and grammatical errors to influence me. But I do want to fix ’em!!

There was one that particularly caught my attention when the reviewer was talking about what a dude the product was. I concluded he meant dud.

Now, a dud is a faulty object or person.

A dude is primarily a guy, who may dress up carefully. Dude may also be an exclamation . . . about a guy.

Think about it, if your character were a guy would you want him to be perceived as a dud or a dude?

Word Confusions . . .

. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.

If you found this post on “Dud versus Dude” interesting, subscribe to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.

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Dud	Dude
WWI War Correspondents Examining a Dud Shell, 9 Sept 1917, is in the public domain, via Picryl.	Dressed-up Dude is under the CC0 1.0 license, via Free*SVG.
Part of Grammar:
Adjective; Noun Plural for the noun: duds	Exclamation; Noun; Verb, intransitive Plural for the noun: dudes Third person present verb: dudes Past tense or past participle: duded Present participle: duding
Adjective: Not working or meeting standards Faulty Counterfeit Noun: A thing that fails to work properly or is otherwise unsatisfactory or worthless An ineffectual person [duds] Clothes	Exclamation: [Slang] Used to express approval, satisfaction, or congratulations Noun: [Informal; mainly North American] A man A guy A man excessively concerned with his clothes, grooming, and manners [US] A city-dweller, especially one vacationing on a ranch in the western US [Informal; US and Canada; a person] Often used to any male in direct address Verb, intransitive: Dress up elaborately
Examples:
Adjective: Turns out it was a dud ignition switch. He was charged with issuing dud checks. He replaced a dud valve. Noun: Fortunately, all three bombs were duds. It was a high-grade collection, not a dud in the lot. He was a complete dud, incapable of even hitting the ball. Buy yourself some new duds.	Exclamation: Dude, you look great! Dude! That’s one expensive sandwich! Dude, you finally called! Noun: If some dude smacked me, I’d smack him back. They were some cool dudes. Rich city boys, dudes, came out West to experience the life of the cowboy. Hey, dude, what are you doing? Verb, transitive: My brother was all duded up in silver and burgundy. He got all duded up for the show. “There’s ‘dudeing’ with all the trimmings, excellent food and rooms at the lodge or individual cabanas” (Keep).
Derivatives:
	Adjective: dudish Adverb: ˈdudishly
History of the Word:
Middle English, in the sense item of clothing, is of unknown origin.	Late 19th century, denoting a dandy, probably shortened from doodle, perhaps with allusion to Yankee Doodle Dandy.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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