The other day, in a chat room, I was greeted with:
Hi!
I'm a nice person so I greeted back with:
Ho!
But then I got a reply:
No! I'm not a Ho!
I thought Ho is an interjection similar to Hey, Hello and Ahoy. But a Ho seems to indicate it is a noun? So I searched this word in a dict and found that Ho also means practitioners of an ancient profession.
I was wondering if I used the word incorrectly. But I can indeed find examples of greetings with Ho:
There is also a Reddit discussion. The comments seem to indicate its usage is uncommon but valid.
My question is: Is it proper to greet someone with Ho in everyday speech? If so, on which occasions? If not, does Ho-Ho or Ho-Ho-Ho sound better?
Best Answer
Ho is pretty much unused in normal speech as a greeting. The two uses you listed are pretty much the only uses I have ever heard. Both are also somewhat archaic and traditional phrases.
"ho, ho, ho" is exclusively what is used to describe Santa Claus's laughter. (Or maybe the Green Giant)
"[Land] Ho! Ahoy mateys" is exclusively what cartoon pirates say.
(ahoy is also a word that is really just associated with pirates or dads trying to be funny on a boat)
It can also be used in music as a sort of nonsense or "sound" lyric if the writer needs to fill a syllable.
see the urban dictionary entry for the slang word ho/hoe which is a rude word to refer to a woman. This homonym is what the other person implied they thought you said, for humorous effect hopefully.
Another homonym is a garden hoe but people will typically think you are using the slang if you just say "Ho."