# How "Hello" Entered English??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799 "2003-07-30T01:46:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/1 "2003-07-30T01:46:38Z")
There was a Final Jeopardy question claiming this [5-letter] word was coined when the telephone was invented. So, naturally, you start thinking about the commonly-known parts to the telephone. I’m not sure if the “5-letter” clue was given. Anyway, the answer is the word “hello”! Can this be true? How did people greet each other before then? Sure, you could say good afternoon, but no one said “hello”??? What’s the SDope on this? - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/2 "2003-07-30T01:57:00Z")
[The SDope](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mahoy.html): > [@](#): > > Alexander Graham Bell suggested “ahoy!” as the standard telephone greeting, but it didn’t catch on–for obvious reasons, you may think. Don’t be so sure. Brooklyn College professor Allen Koenigsberg, author of The Patent History of the Phonograph, argues that the word that did catch on, “hello,” was previously unknown and may have been invented by the man who proposed it, Thomas Edison.\_ ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/3 "2003-07-30T01:57:15Z")
Variations on the word “hello” are very old: [http://www.word-detective.com/back-l2.html#hello](http://www.word-detective.com/back-l2.html#hello) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/4 "2003-07-30T05:58:37Z")
“Ting a ling.”–Kurt Vonnegut, Jr./Kilgore Trout “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?” --Lily Tomlin, as Earnestine ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/5 "2003-07-30T17:19:51Z")
I always thought that, before the telephone’s invention, _Hello_ had been used not so much as a casual greeting, but as an attention getter under presumably under difficult circumstances, as in, “Hello, up there, you distant person to whom I have to shout in order to be heard!”. Or it would be used when someone needed to yell for the sake of yelling, as when calling across a canyon to demonstrate the echo. These usages of _Hello_ are not that different from how _Ahoy_ is used, minus the nautical setting in which the latter usually occurs. Early phones didn’t have the best sound quality, so people using them often had to yell into them, so yelling _Hello!_ was a natural development. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/6 "2003-07-30T17:35:36Z")
While not directly on point, I’d like to mention that my dad and his mother (perhaps others) never answered with “Hello” but always with “all right.” Reminds me of the thing where the old Italian guy wanted a hollow statue for his new house. When asked what kind of hollow statue, he made the familiar stretched fingers to ear maneuver and said, "You know, one of them ring-ring things where you say “Hollow, Stat-you?” ---
**Author:** ![Daver914](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@Daver914](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daver914)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/7 "2003-07-30T18:16:34Z")
**Zeldar** , are you by any chance from the north of England? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/8 "2003-07-30T18:22:24Z")
Notice that C. Montgomery Burns still answers his telephone, “ahoy-hoy!” Side note: early telephone operators were called “hello girls.” ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/9 "2003-07-30T18:22:31Z")
Nope. Why do you ask, **Daver914**? Joke all that bad? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/10 "2003-07-30T18:46:41Z")
“Hello,” spelled as such, only appears in that form after the invention of the telephone. But it’s clearly a variant on “Hallo” and all the preceded it. ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/11 "2003-07-30T20:40:53Z")
[All wrong so far.](http://www.budpocketguide.com/TouristInfo/famous/Famous_Hungarians10.asp) It’s comes from “hallom,” which is Hungarian for “I can hear you,” and it was coined by the (Hungarian) inventor of the telephone exchange, Tivadar Puskás. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/12 "2003-07-30T20:49:52Z")
Sorry, trabi. I’ve researched that one pretty extensively, and while Tivadar Puskas was quite a remarkable guy, there’s no good evidence to corroborate that story. The “Hello” = “Hallo” similarity is a much better answer than the “Hallom” -\> “Hello” solution. It smacks of pop etymology to me, and outside some Hungarians claiming it to be true, I’ve never found any document claiming otherwise. The OED even discounts it. ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/13 "2003-07-30T20:59:32Z")
Oh well, it’s still one of my favourite bits of folklore, so I think I’ll just keep on believing it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/14 "2003-07-30T21:19:38Z")
Actually, to be a completist [there is this earlier thread about “hello” as a telephone greeting.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=83817) Plus, my phrase that “the OED even discounts it” would be better phrased as “the OED doesn’t even mention it.” ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/15 "2003-07-30T21:37:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Plus, my phrase that “the OED even discounts it” would be better phrased as “the OED doesn’t even mention it.” Hmmm… Quite a difference there. Whatever. If you couldn’t find anything to support the Puskás theory, I doubt I will, methodical researcher that you are. I shall continue to tell it to unsuspecting tourists though 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/16 "2003-07-31T00:45:21Z")
And, along the same lines, in Kleberg County, TX, the proper greeting is “Heaven-o,” instead of “Hello,” apparently to distance callers from any Satanic influences. ---
**Author:** ![stockton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@stockton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stockton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/17 "2003-07-31T01:03:54Z")
My pal Joe picks up a ringing phone and says: “GO!!” Quite unsettling sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/18 "2003-07-31T02:01:20Z")
My grandmother used to pick up the phone with, “_well?_” Also a bit unsettling. Wonder if she ever talked to Joe? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hello-entered-english/191799/19 "2003-07-31T13:06:22Z")
The tradition Polish way of picking up the phone is “slucham,” which translates into “(I’m) Listening.” Always struck me as abrupt.