ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the pastiche of polytemporal references to masculine styles undermines the very possibility of a core true masculinity. A different type of miscommunication in The Big Lebowski (TBL) involves the consistent use of synonyms that are marked as slang or old-fashioned. While the most prodigious use of synonyms is for specific parts of the male anatomy, in fitting with the theme of masculinity in question, there seems to be a poetic play with language for own sake throughout TBL. A factor underlying the extreme quotability of TBL is its humor. Funny lines, by their nature, lend themselves to entextualization: to decontextualization and recontextualization in new and (in)appropriate contexts. A key piece of the recent Bahktin-inspired approach in linguistic anthropology is a rethinking of the temporal dimensions of language. Rather than seeng language as a static, atemporal code, anthropologists recognize that language contains multiple temporalities.
