In August 1993, New York Times reporter Michael T. Kaufman wrote a column extolling yo as “a pithy, cheery and direct expression of common citizenship” that was “rooted in New York.” He went so far as to say that the city should add the greeting to its official seal.

Kaufman admitted that yo may have originated in Philadelphia. “Then again,” he wrote, “Babe Ruth once played for Boston.” In other words, it didn’t matter if the term wasn’t a native New Yorker—because it was New York that put it on the map.