is there a "yo" around here?

[Jonathan Lighter]

1928 _Olean [N.Y.] Times_ (Feb. 1) 11: Then the Yankees produced a pair of
other gilt-edged drawing cards in Buster Gehrig, who is as German as his
name indicates, and Poosh-'em-Up Tony Lazzeri, a wallio if there ever was
one.

1928 Ibid. (May 11) 17: Tony Lazzeri doesn't like to be called "Wallio."

1928 _Chester [Pa.] Times_ (Nov. 1) 15:  He's training Tony Canzoneri, the
little wallio fighter.

1929 _Manitowoc [Wis.] Herald News_ (May 25) 14: Tony Lazzeri says that he
got the nickname "Poosh Em Up" from a Wallio in San Francisco who couldn't
speak English well.

When I was a lad, Tony Lazzeri (1903-1946) was still legendary among
Yankees fans (of a certain age but considerably younger than I am now) as
one of the greatest stars of the '20s and '30s.

JL

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 1:56 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: is there a "yo" around here?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 8/19/2012 11:08 AM, George Thompson wrote:
> > ....
> >
> > >From a profile of Salvatore Strazzullo, a lawyer for celebrities, in the
> > Metropolitan section of today's (Sunday, August 19) NY Times.  Passage
> > quoted is on p. 6, col. 3.  The story plays up his background as one who
> > was born and raised in Brooklyn (Bensonhurst) with grandparents who were
> > born in Italy, region unspecified.
> >
> > =93There are some lawyers who don=92t really take him all that
> seriously,=
> > =94 said
> > one colleague, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to
> damage
> > his relationship with Mr. Strazzullo. Using a Brooklyn-Italian insult,
> the
> > colleague added, =93Sal=92s a bit of a =91yo.=92 =94
> >
> > While I sit forlornly waiting for the final volume of HDAS -- and the
> curse
> > of the Thompsons hangs over Oxford University Press, and will, until it
> > appears -- I turn to Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Slang as the next
> best
> > source.  It defines "yo" as "a young black man, esp. one who deals drugs
> on
> > the street", and supports this with citations from 1991, 1997 and 2006.
> >
> > Meanwhile, I lived from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s in a largely
> > Italian section of Brooklyn -- Gravesend -- without I think ever hearing
> > "yo" used in the Times' sense.  I heard a free-range "goomba" once, that
> I
> > recall, and "cugine" 3 or 4 times.
> > I do recall hearing a young thuggish-acting black guy apply "yo" to a
> > Spanish guy who had tried to intervene in a quarrel -- "this yo here".
> > A relative who still lives in Gravesend says she hasn't heard the word.
> >   (Gravesend is much less of an Italian American stronghold now than it
> was
> > 20 years ago.)
> --
>
> Cf. "wallio"/"wal[l]yo"/"wally-o". I believe this has been reported to
> be shortened to "yo" but I can't find a reference right now.
>
> DARE, v. 5, p. 846:
>
> <<[sItal dial _(g)uaglio_ vocative of _(g)uaglione_ boy, fellow] _often
> derog_ Cf _DS_ HH28 / An Italian male -- often used as a form of
> address. ....>> [citations from 1941 to 2007]
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
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>



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