Has anybody SERIOUSLY known a fundamentalist who greeted people this way? It sounds like an urban legend to me …
Yep, I have. Mostly to each other. I don’t think even they beleive hello is sinful or seriously think it should be changed. But it is just like ending every other sentance with ‘praise the Lord’ More of a way of saying I belong to the same club as you,with the implied "and I am watching you to see if you transgress’
Some time within the past year, some small Texas town council passed a resolution that they would use only “heaven-o” in greeting each other.
I hope somebody else can find a cite for this. 
Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.
I’ve heard them too. They seemed kinda embarrassed.
Peace,
mangeorge
I knew someone who pronounced helicopter as “helio-copter” to avoid saying Hell. An otherwise normal person, just extra-sensitive about “the appearance of evil”, I guess.
“non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem”
Cool stuff: the word “hello” was invented in the late 1880s as a device for answering the new telephones. The original expression was “ahoy-hoy,” which Mr. Burns on The Simpsons still uses (I love that show!). Original telephone operators were men, but they got annoyed and cursed too much, so “hello girls” were hired, and it was one of the pleasanter career choices for women at the time–a lot better than factories!
That IS cool…thanks, Flora.
Why-o stop-o at-o heaven-o?
Take a look at http://www.kingsville.org/heaveno/index.html
Is that anything like Peggy-o from Fenario?
“WHEREAS, We cannot wait for the millennial norm to be spontaneous behavior, but instead, we need to take the rod in hand and proclaim peace and “Heaven-O” to our neighbors throughout the world…”
Take the rod in hand as a way of promoting peace?
Are these people serious or just whacked? What kind of drug-induced nightmare must life be in this hell hole?
How about this instead, “O-hi-o?”
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
- Ambrose Bierce
Elected officials are considered a major source of entertainment here in Texas. And the occaisional election gives the dead something to do. Pluto, you sure that’s why he pronounced it that way? HEElicopter is an accepted pronunciation. HelliOcopter and heeliocopter are common among the older folks here. A possible association with heliotrope? On the TV show ‘RipCord’ Ken Curtiss (Festus) pronounced it that way, it may have been the way he always pronounced it or he may have just remembered it from home. At any rate the producers let him .It contrasted his ’ rugged country boy with horse sense’ character to the 'technologicl minded action hero’co-star.
When this was big news, some people I knew tried to shift the balance by creating their own variants. I’m pretty sure “fck-o" and "sht-o” were among them.
Yeah, that happens to me sometimes.
Dr. J
Y’know, back in the 30’s, C. S. Lewis wrote:
It’s nice to see the Fundies working on redressing that imbalance (though it would horrify them to be told so).
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
John, what book of Lewis’ is that from? I love his stuff. I’m working my way (slowly!) through “Miracles” now. Love the quote.
where was it ever said that it was wrong to say hell? or fuck or shit for that matter
eggo
Eggo! didn’t you used to be waffle in your pre fundy days? before you changed because it was to close to awful?
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
The Lewis quote is from The Allegory of Love. It’s an excellent book, but I should warn you that it’s a technical treatise on medieval and Renaissance literature, so if you’re not interested in tracing the links from Ovid through Le Roman de la Rose to The Fairie Queene, you’ll find it rough going at best. (If, on the other hand, you are interested, it’s generally regarded as the definitive study.)
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams