On The Road

I'm listening to Kerouac's classic on cd (the most time-effective way to "read," for me, these days) and I happened upon a little bit of knowledge. At some point in the narrative, he says something like: "I called to him, 'are you leaving, yo?' We called each other 'yo...'"

This made me remember a recent "Grammar Girl" podcast in which some research study (a result of an observation by Baltimore City school teachers) that interrogated an "emerging pheonomena" was discussed. Students seemed to have found a gender-neutral pronoun, namely "yo," according to the findings. Cited example: "Look at Yo's coat."

I think most people who even remotely have their finger on the pulse of what's happening know that it's been a part of urban vernacular for years, but moving on... I actually took exception to the posited "used when the gender is unknown or unclear." The pronoun is gender-neutral, but not because the gender isn't known. I suppose it could be used in that case, but the students have not "come up" with a way to refer to a person whose gender is unknown to them.

Anyway, I find this Kerouacian revelation to be of great interest. What is it about the word "yo" that makes it such an obvious go-to when you want a short cut for reference to another? Obviously, in his case, also not used to address gender neutrality, but more a way of saying "you, a person, me, or otherwise."