Author Archives: maryjane

Have you been a victim of this startling salutation—even though you’re a gal?! (No GUY in sight.) The first time it happened to me, I chuckled, thinking, “Oh my, this new generation is so … so … casual! Whatever happened to “Hello, ma’am,” or “Ms. Butters, may I …?”

But, according to Dictionary.com—an invaluable resource in my business, and one that has occasional fun tidbits about word usage—the term “dudes” has been around since 1883. In that year, the New-York Mirror described dudes as “tight-trousered, brief-coated, eye-glassed, fancy-vested, sharp-toed shod” gents in the Big Apple. And “duding up” meant to dress up in your fanciest finery.

A few decades later, in the 1920s, the term “dude ranch” came into our lexicon, meaning a vacation ranch catering to “dudes” (translate: “city slickers”). You know, a vacation where you could wear your fanciest cowgirl-like garb and go out West where handsome cowboys actually worked from atop real horses.

Lynne Roberts & Roy Rogers in Billy the Kid Returns via Wikimedia Commons

Fast-forward to the ever-so-casual 2000s, where “dude” now has an official entry in the dictionary, simply described as “a general term of address used to a man, woman, or group.” And lest you think “dude” was previously a gender-specific term only for “dudes,” as we baby-boomers sometimes called members of the male gender, the term has apparently always had a female counterpart. Dudette, Valley girls? Nope, that would be “dudine,” as appeared in Stories of a Country Doctor, by Willis Percival King in 1891: “She was between 60 and 70 years of age at this time and was as pronounced a specimen of the type dudine as I ever saw.”

Okay dude … let’s get on our fancy duds, pony up, and get to one of those ranches where handsome cowboys ride the range. You in? Hey, speaking of dudines, today my daughter, Megan, turns 35. Meggie dude, you are THE dudette, duder motor skooter!!!!! I love you madly. Seriously. Madly. In. Love w/YOU.

While working on a recent issue of our magazine, we ran across the word “syllabub.” No, not like, “Hey bully boy bubba, how many syllabulls do you think this word has?” but more like “My favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal is the traditional syllabub.”

sil–uh-buhb

noun

From the Oxford English Dictionary:
A drink or dish made of milk (freq. as drawn from the cow) or cream, curdled by the admixture of wine, cider, or other acid, and often sweetened and flavoured.

A later variation, known as an Everlasting Syllabub, adds a stabilizer such as gelatin or corn starch.

detail, “The Sense of Taste” by Philip Mercier (circa 1689-1760)

“Lemon Syllabub”
from The Experienced English Housekeeper, by Elizabeth Raffald, London 1784

Put a pint of cream to a pint of white wine, then rub a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar upon the out rind of two lemons, till you have got out all the essence, then put the sugar to the cream, and squeeze in the juice of both lemons, let it stand for two hours, then mill them with a chocolate mill, to raise the froth, and take it off with a spoon as it rises, or it will make it heavy, lay it upon a hair sieve to drain, then fill your glasses with the remainder, and lay on the froth as high as you can, let them stand all night and they will be clear at the bottom.~

Wine pudding? Not so sure about that. And I’ve mislaid my hair sieve …

But leave it to my favorite British cook, Nigella Lawson, to provide us with a very yummy-sounding modern adaptation, Turkish Delight Syllabub, that uses orange liqueur instead, topped with pistachios. That’s something I could wrap my spoon around! Now, if only I can get Sally O’Malley to draw me a picture and figure out what an admixture is!

Nigella Lawson, Turkish Delight Syllabub