The Volokh Conspiracy
[Orin Kerr, March 5, 2008 at 11:07pm] Trackbacks
Supreme Court Trivia:
Name the Supreme Court Justice who made the following remark to counsel during oral argument: "Are you sure? I have smoked them, and I am sure I am not a dude."
The Cabbage (mail):
What in the world is in that case?

... and how do you smoke so good?
3.5.2008 11:23pm
Roger Schlafly (www):
If he is not a dude, he must be a fool.
3.5.2008 11:37pm
The McGehee (mail) (www):
In those robes they wear, dude looks like a lady.
3.5.2008 11:47pm
Dave N (mail):
I was thinking of more recent vintage, and immediately deduced it was a trick question--thus the answer had to be Justice Ginsberg or Justice O'Connor, who clearly are not "dudes" or Justice Thomas, to prove that he does occassionally speak during oral arguments.

Boy was I wrong.
3.5.2008 11:54pm
guest:
My guess was the late Chief Justice Rehnquist.
3.6.2008 1:00am
S.S. (mail):
"Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not 'Mr. Lebowski'. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing."

—The Dude
3.6.2008 1:02am
BRM:
How was the term dude used in those days?
3.6.2008 1:10am
Freddy Hill:
Excessively concerned with appearance, a snappy dresser, a dandy, a fop, somebody that would smoke foreign cigarettes and drink foreign wine; snobbish, maybe.
3.6.2008 1:17am
OrinKerr:
BRM,

Ah, that's the trick. My understanding is that at the time, the word "dude" was most often used to mean "a man excessively concerned with his clothes, grooming, and manners." It still has that dictionary definition, although -- dude, it's not like anyone uses it that way anymore.

Dictionary.com has this added explanation, which I thought was pretty interesting:
Cowboys and the Wild West are indelibly set in the minds of many as typical of America—an association borne out by several common Modern English words that originated in the speech of the 19th-century western United States. One is dude, now perhaps most familiar as a slang term with a wide range of uses (including use as an all-purpose interjection for expressing approval: "Dude!"). Originally it was applied to fancy-dressed city folk who went out west on vacation. In this usage it first appears in the 1870s. The origin of the word is not known, but a number of other cowboy terms were borrowed by early settlers from American Spanish. These include buckaroo, corral, lasso, mustang, ranch, rodeo, and stampede. Buckaroo, interestingly, is an example of a word borrowed twice: it is an Americanized form of Spanish vaquero, which also made it into English as vaquero, a cowboy.
3.6.2008 1:20am
BRM:
That explains the term "dude ranch." I think using that definition, Justice Holmes may very well have been a dude.
3.6.2008 1:25am
UW2L:
Justice O'Connor, the Arizona cowgirl, is quite definitely not a dude, then.
3.6.2008 1:52am
rarango (mail):
"Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not 'Mr. Lebowski'. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing."

—The Dude


And one of the great ending lines: "The Dude abides."

Thanks for reminding me of a great Movie, SS.
3.6.2008 9:44am
Doug Sundseth (mail):
My uncle, a large-animal veterinarian and rodeo cowboy, divides the human male population broadly into Dudes and Hands. "Dude" isn't the good category.
3.6.2008 11:54am
Gern:

If he is not a dude, he must be a fool.


Or at least he considered himself to have been called a fool...
3.6.2008 9:49pm

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