NPR examines the origin of the most important word in the English language: Dude

A typical United States generational beef about clothing, and some poetry, seems to have given us a word that today has one thousand uses, dude.

"They were young. They were vacuous. They were effeminate — and they were drawing a bit of attention from the humorists and the cartoonists," Cohen told NPR.

He says this crowd had a certain way of dressing — usu…