Yo

[Beverly Flanigan]

A student of mine said that his German professor insists that "yo" is a
shortening of German "jawohl"--and he gave a long explanation of why which
I can't remember.  I can't buy this at all, but has anyone else heard
it???  Could it have been "PA dutchified"?


At 02:15 PM 9/19/01 -0600, you wrote:
>From:    Ed Keer <edkeer at YAHOO.COM>
>
>: I remember Yo being a stereotypical Philadelphia slang
>: term in the 80s, before I ever heard it in AAVE.
>: Think Rocky: "Yo! Adrienne..."  I'm sure there were
>: some articles on this in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
>
>"Yo" is used, in my experience as a grad student at Penn, by Philadelphians
>as a greeting as an in-group marker.
>
>I don't know if it's still the case, but the Philadelphia _Daily_news_'s
>style/daybreak/whatever section at least used to be titled the "Yo! Philly!"
>section.
>
>David Bowie                                       Department of English
>Assistant Professor                            Brigham Young University
>db.list at pmpkn.net                                   http://pmpkn.net/lx
>    The opinions stated here are not necessarily those of my employer


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm