Hello? HELLO? Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? We’re going deep on the topic of the telephone in hopes that you win a free basket of wings at your local trivia night. Here’s something I learned recently:
The word “hello” wasn’t used as a greeting until the invention of the telephone. Before then, people said “good morning” or “good evening,” reserving “hello” to convey surprise along the lines of “ack!” or “gadzooks!”
Why, yes, I would be happy to use it in an overly dramatic sentence: “HELLO, HOW DARE YOU HIDE IN MY BUSHES IN A GHOSTFACE MASK BEFORE OCT. 1?!” Or, “HELLO, I WASN’T KIDDING WHEN I SAID I DID NOT WANT THE CHILI’S SERVERS TO SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”
It was Thomas Edison who suggested that “hello” could be a neat thing to holler into the phone hole. Alexander Graham Bell was pulling for “ahoy” as the greeting of choice, and I’m bereft he didn’t win. Can you imagine “ahoy” in casual circulation?