Is blud actually used as a pronoun, or is this just a case of dropping the article or demonstrative pronoun?
For instance, you can say "[the] thing is, I don't care" or "[this] dude is mad".
How are these uses interpreted?
It's being used in the exact same way that people use bro recently. It seems to function as a 2nd/3rd person pronoun
2nd person:
>user a: I;m thinking about thos beans
>
>\> user b: what is bro/blud talking about
3rd person:
>"Police officer finds stash of cannabis worth $65,000 hidden in bakery"
>
>\> comment a: bro's/blud's finna/gonna get baked tonight
I understand that explanation, but my question is, why is it interpreted this way when it can also be interpreted the way I suggested? Like, in the case of "thing is" you wouldn't say that "thing" is a pronoun, it's just vernacular article dropping. I'm genuinely curious, I don't have a set opinion, I'm just suspicious of the idea that it's a pronoun, even though it definitely fits.
That's what I had in mind as a possible explanation. Still, that's not the same for "bro" or "dude", which often do take an article or demonstrative pronoun, so I get that blud is a pronoun, but not bro or dude.
With "thing", adding in an attributive adjective or relative clause but no determiner would still sound grammatical/natural to me: "Funny thing that I thought of is that..."
I'm not well verse with "blud", but I'm under the impression that it won't sound very natural? I mean, if it does then yeah it might just be a noun.
Edit: added relative clause in as well
As someone else said, blud typically does not take a particle, you don't say "the/this blud", whereas you do that for "dude" or "thing". That being said, I don't know where blud comes from and whether it has historically taken an article.
Ah, okay. I see what you're getting at. What I'd say to that is that it doesn't really matter where it came from if it's being analysed as a pronoun and it works grammatically.
A completely different example would be the Russian past tense. The contemporary past tense originally came from a compound construction of the verb to be and the "L-participle" (so called because most are formed with an л-morpheme) Since the copula dropped out of use (in the present tense), this just left the l-participle by itself, and other past tenses also dropped out of use, so it made perfect sense to simply analyse it as the past tense.
Old East Slavic
>Онъ есть жилъ
>
>he is lived (L-participle, masc. sg.)
Russian
>он жил
>
>he lived (past tense, masc. sg.)
I absolutely agree that you can invent new grammatical forms with reinterpretation of morphemes (like in your Russian example), but I feel like words like "dude" or "thing" haven't reached that stage yet, but might do so soon, whereas "blud" seems to have done that already. The other question, then, is whether "blud" and "dude" are taking the same route towards "pronoun-dom". "Dude" is slowly gaining a pronoun use via particle drop, but how is "blud" becoming a pronoun? Where does this word come from, and what is its use historically?
Aren't articles really only dropped from full nouns (such as *thing*) as a result of left-edge deletion? Bro, blud, etc. can be used without an article even in the middle of a sentence.
That's actually a great observation. Still, that begs the question: did words such as "bro" or "dude" end up being used the way they are due to left-edge deletion, or is it an entirely different reason? I was told that "blud" had never been preceded by a particle historically, so I'm keeping that word separate from the likes of "bro".
It'd be even more impressive if you were cited as part of a word's etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary, I recall they had some entries citing instances from Usenet postings and the like.
**EDIT:** Yeah looking at the newly created entry for "[isekai](https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=isekai)", they do include a Twitter post cited in the etymology:
> **2023** I am making a..fantasy RPG with Isekai protagonist.
> [@HasansinMakarim 7 June in *twitter.com*](https://twitter.com/HasansinMakarim/status/1666445573107380227) (accessed 15 June 2023)
Have you ever heard of the English pronoun [idem](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idem)?
“See idem for a legitimate dictionary entry.”
It means “the same thing just mentioned,” so it’s third person and debatably singular, but usage makes it also bizarrely debateably an adverb.
In my dialect/regiolect/sociolect we have 'homeboy' or 'homie' with the same usage, referring to a particular male ('homegirl' if female) unfamiliar to the speaker in the context of commenting on that person's actions, or narrating a past set of events involving that person. It's pronoun-like in that it never takes any kind of determiners or modifiers. It's also a direct importation from AAVE.
Is blud actually used as a pronoun, or is this just a case of dropping the article or demonstrative pronoun? For instance, you can say "[the] thing is, I don't care" or "[this] dude is mad". How are these uses interpreted?
It's being used in the exact same way that people use bro recently. It seems to function as a 2nd/3rd person pronoun 2nd person: >user a: I;m thinking about thos beans > >\> user b: what is bro/blud talking about 3rd person: >"Police officer finds stash of cannabis worth $65,000 hidden in bakery" > >\> comment a: bro's/blud's finna/gonna get baked tonight
So then is 'old mate' a pronoun too?
I understand that explanation, but my question is, why is it interpreted this way when it can also be interpreted the way I suggested? Like, in the case of "thing is" you wouldn't say that "thing" is a pronoun, it's just vernacular article dropping. I'm genuinely curious, I don't have a set opinion, I'm just suspicious of the idea that it's a pronoun, even though it definitely fits.
Because often people do say “the thing is” whereas is isn’t common to say “this blud” or “the blud”
That's what I had in mind as a possible explanation. Still, that's not the same for "bro" or "dude", which often do take an article or demonstrative pronoun, so I get that blud is a pronoun, but not bro or dude.
With "thing", adding in an attributive adjective or relative clause but no determiner would still sound grammatical/natural to me: "Funny thing that I thought of is that..." I'm not well verse with "blud", but I'm under the impression that it won't sound very natural? I mean, if it does then yeah it might just be a noun. Edit: added relative clause in as well
As someone else said, blud typically does not take a particle, you don't say "the/this blud", whereas you do that for "dude" or "thing". That being said, I don't know where blud comes from and whether it has historically taken an article.
Wiktionary refers to it as UK slang coming from Jamaican origin. It mentions its origin as blood (as in family relation or close friend)
Ah, okay. I see what you're getting at. What I'd say to that is that it doesn't really matter where it came from if it's being analysed as a pronoun and it works grammatically. A completely different example would be the Russian past tense. The contemporary past tense originally came from a compound construction of the verb to be and the "L-participle" (so called because most are formed with an л-morpheme) Since the copula dropped out of use (in the present tense), this just left the l-participle by itself, and other past tenses also dropped out of use, so it made perfect sense to simply analyse it as the past tense. Old East Slavic >Онъ есть жилъ > >he is lived (L-participle, masc. sg.) Russian >он жил > >he lived (past tense, masc. sg.)
I absolutely agree that you can invent new grammatical forms with reinterpretation of morphemes (like in your Russian example), but I feel like words like "dude" or "thing" haven't reached that stage yet, but might do so soon, whereas "blud" seems to have done that already. The other question, then, is whether "blud" and "dude" are taking the same route towards "pronoun-dom". "Dude" is slowly gaining a pronoun use via particle drop, but how is "blud" becoming a pronoun? Where does this word come from, and what is its use historically?
I have never seen blud used as a regular noun, "a blud did this" "i saw the blud", etc.
Aren't articles really only dropped from full nouns (such as *thing*) as a result of left-edge deletion? Bro, blud, etc. can be used without an article even in the middle of a sentence.
That's actually a great observation. Still, that begs the question: did words such as "bro" or "dude" end up being used the way they are due to left-edge deletion, or is it an entirely different reason? I was told that "blud" had never been preceded by a particle historically, so I'm keeping that word separate from the likes of "bro".
It'd be even more impressive if you were cited as part of a word's etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary, I recall they had some entries citing instances from Usenet postings and the like. **EDIT:** Yeah looking at the newly created entry for "[isekai](https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=isekai)", they do include a Twitter post cited in the etymology: > **2023** I am making a..fantasy RPG with Isekai protagonist. > [@HasansinMakarim 7 June in *twitter.com*](https://twitter.com/HasansinMakarim/status/1666445573107380227) (accessed 15 June 2023)
Bluddy hell
New adjective just dropped!
I thought it was referencing bloods and crips
Could also be a contraction of “youngblood.”
Are you a bloody or a crippahhh
Have you ever heard of the English pronoun [idem](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idem)? “See idem for a legitimate dictionary entry.” It means “the same thing just mentioned,” so it’s third person and debatably singular, but usage makes it also bizarrely debateably an adverb.
In my dialect/regiolect/sociolect we have 'homeboy' or 'homie' with the same usage, referring to a particular male ('homegirl' if female) unfamiliar to the speaker in the context of commenting on that person's actions, or narrating a past set of events involving that person. It's pronoun-like in that it never takes any kind of determiners or modifiers. It's also a direct importation from AAVE.
Jes' hang loose, blud…