[Ads-l] Antedating of "yo" (greeting)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

There are 55 books in the 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain with 30 in
1975 or before (according to Wikipedia); hence, there are many more
books that could be searched.  Garson

On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 7:31 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I looked through some books by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter; Salvatore
> Albert Lombino) in the Internet Archive. McBain used "yo", but the
> meaning varied. I did not see any unambiguous greetings (in my
> opinion).
>
> Below "yo'" seems to mean "you"
>
> Date: 1956 Copyright (April 1969 reprint)
> Book Title: The Mugger
> Author: Ed McBain
> Publisher: Dell Publishing, New York
> Quote Page 102
> Database: Internet Archive
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> "We can talk 'bout yo' husbin an' mah wife, how's that?
> Ah got th' sweetes' li'l wife in th' whole wide world."
> [End excerpt]

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