ursego:
I am also looking for a way to say "dude." GoogleTranslate says "ulo" (person), which is sort of like "guy." But I am thinking that you need to form the (affectionate) diminutive of that word to get the proper sense of "dude." How to achieve this? How, also, to achieve diminutives of friends' names? We have "paĉjo" and "panjo" (from "patro" and "patrino") for "dad" and "mom," but how to turn "Robert" into "Bob," or "William" into "Bill," or even "friend" into "buddy," for example?

I like to remark, that use and construction of affectionate or diminutive expressions is very culture-bound. I.e. in one language you may change guy to dude, but in another you form a corresponding expression from the person's name, Robert to Bob. Even when the same language is used, the expressions are likely to be different, a dude or a mate.

Having said that you should ask yourself, whether you're translating a text into Esperanto and want to preserve the original language's feeling or are you trying to find expressions usable in Esperantujo.

I personally find the E-o diminutive forms awkward and rather misfortune. Ok, -nj is pronounceable but -ĉj less. Or maybe I haven't been in such social situations, where I would have needed those.

Robert → Robeĉjo?
William → Viliĉjo?
amiko → amiĉjo? aminjo?

but I'm not comfort with using gender-bound affixes in the first place either.

Hmm, what if one doesn't want to distinguish between genders? Amikulo?

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
For some odd reason, -ul is used in Ido to indicate masculinity.

To me, amikulo sounds like it means "friendly person".

One of FAQs in all E-o forums, incl. this Lernu, is the perceived sexism. The argument for its existence is based on the fact, that there is non-diminutive feminine marker but no non-diminutive male-marker. On the other hand Idists had some bright moments (and some less bright ones), and they chose amiko any friend, amikulo male friend and amikino female friend. Initially Z participated in the development of Ido and thought, that this solution is better than his. Due to some unfortunate events the movements didn't got on good terms (to put it mildly) and all Ido-ideas were banned.

In that sense my amikulo is a misfortunate one, but plain amiko lacks the buddyness aspect.

Yes, Z refers to Zamenhof.

For a complete history of Ido you might want to read the Wikipedia article.

An extremely short version goes this way.

Disclaimer: This contains my personal perception, of what happened, and thus may not be the whole truth, but I'm not interested in any debate of the matter.

A selection committee gathered to select the official international auxilliary language. Esperantists thought, that E-o will be selected. However the committee saw, that while E-o was the best proposal, it needed some honing. Some esperantists were furiated, while others initially participated in the further development, Z himself included. But the developing committee got to internal quarrel and most esperantists left, Z included. The developing committee finally came with a proposal, that got the name Ido (the offspring). The return of those esperantists, who had participated in the development, was seen by the furiated die-hards as a proof, that nothing could nor should ever be changed in E-o, La Fundamento estas netuŝebla!

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
Notice that very few people actually speak Ido.

That is my observation also. I have two wild guesses, why Ido failed.

All auxiliary language projects came to a halt, when the wwi broke out. The optimism got berried in the trenches. When the peace finally came, most of those few ready to adopt an auxiliary language had already adopted E-o. The big masses had other concerns.

While E-o has been accused for being too European branch-ish of Indo-European languages, Ido is even more, to the point of being a Romance language. So why would those, especially outside Europe, who had adopted E-o, switch to Ido, a even more West-European language, when Europe had failed in peace.

In marketing terms the market had shrunken and was saturated with a product, that wasn't clearly inferior to the newcomer. Therefore the newcomer failed.

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
I have had the chance to talk to a few Ido speakers online before, and they seem to think that Ido is way better than Esperanto, but they won't say why, except for lack of an accusative case.

Do you have any suggestions for convincing people who do not speak an IAL (or any conlang) to learn Esperanto?

Ach, but Ido, afaik, does have the accusative case (with -n as in E-o). It was initially abandoned, but later restored, when it was realised, that you need it in certain cases to make clear, which noun is the subject and which the object. In the usual SVO word order you don't need it, but in other you might (cf. lion vs. honey badger in a Youtube video). Remember, that word order in Ido (or E-o) is not fixed like in English.

I think, that the main Idist argument for Ido's alleged superiority is the principle of retractability, i.e. how you can always transform a noun to a verb and vice versa. This doesn't usually work in E-o and E-o's vortfarado, word construction, is actually a mess (but works in practice most of the time, and when it doesn't, you just have to learn by heart the exceptions in this allegedly exceptionless language).

Disclaimer: What follows is my personal opinion, that does not reflect in any way the standings of any organisation I might be a member of.

For the million dollar question how to make E-o pop or cool I repeat, what I have said so many times before. We need pop music with catchy choruses in E-o, blockbusters with dialogue in E-o and E-o porn (whatever that could be), so that the masses get exposed to the language and get interested in it. The E-o movement is too introspective, incestuous and people there think, that biographies of Z or anthologies of E-o literature are interesting ad infinitum.

It is not the language itself, that is interesting, but what you can achieve, get with it.

For instance you hear about an interesting Paraguyan movie, but unfortunately you don't understand Guarani, which is spoken in the film. However you can get the film subtitled in E-o, and the film will become a life-changer for you.

We also need business in E-o. Imagine, that you're running a small company and you need a piece of software for ,say, handling logistics. The local vendors have alternatives, but they are a little too expensive and don't quite match your requirements. Then you find a Laotian company with retejo, website, in E-o and they have a perfect product for you. Since their software is in E-o, there is no need to translate it, and you have your logistics software running in a blitz. You save time and money.

Well, I volunteered for the upcoming UK in Lahti already last autumn. Having not attended any UK before I asked, how market booths are allocated. I was amazed to hear, that there is only one market booth, Libroservo, that is run by UEA. Despite the name they are selling also other things than books.

You may apply to get your products for sale there (the instructions are on the UEA's site), but the process seemed to be quite complicated and above all they stated, that the products must have a clear and outspoken (my words) connection to E-o. What products are such? Obviously different kind of books in E-o, music sung in E-o and... ?? Except now days you consume music mostly either by listening to stream or by downloading. No physical recordings are involved. They are also selling backpacks, pins and postcards with E-o logos, so I guess those too count having a clear E-o connection. But that's it.

To tell the thruth a congress isn't the right arena for selling products aimed for businesses. But there most certainly are consumer products (e.g. why not condomes with green E-o stars or something), that third parties could sell. Note, it's not something UEA should do, but they could provide an opportunity for others to do.

Ne krokodilu!
En la suplemento de via profilo:
"Kiel diras mia nomo, mi malamas la anglan. Bedaŭrinde, mi denaske parolas ĝin. Kial homoj pensas, ke Esperanto estas nek lerninda nek lernenda? Ĉu homoj ne konas Esperanton? Bonvole diru pri Esperanto al la homoj, kiujn vi konas."
Por tute ne krokodili vi povas skribi:
... ke Esperanto ne estas nek lerninda nek lernenda?
aŭ
... ke Esperanto estas nelerninda, nelernenda?

Серёга:Por tute ne krokodili vi povas skribi:
... ke Esperanto ne estas nek lerninda nek lernenda?
aŭ
... ke Esperanto estas nelerninda, nelernenda?

En Esperanto mankas t. n. "duobla neado", via unua propono estas rusismo.

Alia ekzemplo (kiun mi lernis en la lasta Komuna Seminario) "fajfas" povas signifi ne nur fajfas sed ankaŭ "mi ne zorgas pri tio". Mi ne estas certa se tio estas ofte videbla uzado.

Kaj kial temo pri slango iĝas pri Ido?!

Another example (which I learnt in the last Community Seminar) "whistle" can mean not only whistle but also "I don't care about that". I am not sure if that is an oft seen usage.

And why did a topic about slang become about Ido?!