“Last year, I started to notice a particular phrase cheerfully uttered in my direction when I entered a store, hotel, restaurant, yoga studio — even the venerable halls of the JFK Delta SkyClub: “Welcome in!” I heard the greeting for the first time about five years ago on a trip to Los Angeles, but since then it has seemingly made its way across the country and taken hold in every corner of the hospitality industry in New York. Curious if others had noticed the same thing, I asked my Instagram followers: “Death to ‘welcome in’,” one friend said. “It’s so cringey!” said another. Like me, others felt it had come out of nowhere and was suddenly everywhere.”