Stop saying that, dude.

I was doing the blog round-up on Friday and I ran across an entry by Shadow of Diogenes* where he wondered

What is the one curse word, swear word or bad word that you find yourself using over and over ? Perhaps you have attempted to remove it from your vocabulary, but you haven’t been successful as of yet.

I answered with the swear word that had given me the most trouble over the years. However, I began to think, “Was that really the hardest?” No, not really. I’m almost ashamed to say the word that has given me the most trouble. OK, it’s “dude.”

I told you it was bad. I had only said it jokingly until I met Mike**. He was another server where I worked and the word had firmly entrenched itself in his vocabulary. I thought at first it was a joke, no educated person could possibly say dude so often without being aware. And then, dude, it happened. The more I talked with Mike, the more the word snuck out of my mouth.
“Hey, did you see that dude at table 104?”
“No, which dude?”
“The old dude with the moustache.”
It starts off innocent enough, where it actually refers to a person. Then, one day dude, you just start randomly inserting dude into your sentences.

I have a bad feeling, that I just reinserted the word back into daily use.

I have a problem; I pick up the language of those I associate with.
Crap.

*What is the pronunciation of Diogenes? I’ve got about three possibilities rattling around in my head and they won’t go away until I figure it out.

**Not our Notoriously Nice Mike, this was a not-so-nice-Mike, but he was an amusing co-worker.