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Column: We can’t take credit for ‘dude,’ but L.A. is responsible for the creation of hundreds of words in its 235-year history

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L.A. has bestowed all kinds of new words on the world – not just movie-business terms like “hot set” and the red-carpet posing practice known as “step and repeat,” but “surface street” and “Orange Curtain.” USC linguist Edward Finegan talks us through how we are what we say, dude.

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