We
have all grown up saying hello on the phone. It is literally the first
word out of most people’s mouth when they pick up the phone. I bet you
do it as well, and you don’t even think about it. It is just
instinctive, hello is what you say when you pick up the phone.
Surprisingly, hello is actually a fairly new word. According to Oxford Dictionaries, the term came into usage in the late 19th century, while other sources putting its emergence at 1827. It was actually a variation of English greeting ‘hullo.’ This was years before the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, which happened in 1876.
At
the time that Bell invented the telephone, the term hello was being
used as a word to garner attention such as, “Hello, what are you doing?”
or “Hello, who is there?” In fact, hello was not even in the forerunner
to be used as a greeting over the phone, or even a greeting at all.
People didn’t use hello as a greeting, which was considered as rude,
rather people used the traditional Good Morning, Good Day, or Good
Evening. When Bell used the telephone, he preferred to use “Ahoy!”,
which is basically a nautical greeting, now mainly used by pirates in
cartoons
.
The
use of hello was actually accidental and by Thomas Alva Edison
nonetheless. As the story goes, Thomas Edison mistakenly heard a person
say ‘hullo’ on the phone, he naturally responded with ‘hello’. Hence,
hello has been used since. Of course, reality is not exactly that
simple. However, the basis of the story is true, Thomas Edison offered
and used ‘hello’ as a standard greeting when using the telephone. He
actually offered the term as there was a need for a greeting that
allowed a person to get the attention of the person on the other line.
At the time, telephones were an open line, which means that phones were
always connect, one just had to pick up the phone and start talking. As
the usage of telephones grew, telephone exchanges came into place, where
‘hello-girls’ or operators would connect one telephone line to another.
While this may have changed over the years, the usage of hello has
stuck around.
As
is with all things that are popular, there is a rumor going around
about how the term hello came to be used. This rumor claims that hello
was the name of Alexander Graham Bell’s girlfriend. Margaret Hello was
the first person with whom he conversed on the newly invented phone.
However, there are a couple of issues with this story. One, do you often
call your boyfriend or girlfriend with their last name? Secondly, Bell
did not have a girlfriend; he was already married when he invented the
device. His wife’s name was Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, who took the name
Mabel Bell after marriage. Also, she would not have been conversing on
the phone with her husband, mainly because she was deaf since childhood.
Whatever the reason, hello pushed past ahoy and never looked back.
The same cannot be said of the phonebook's recommended Way To End A Phone Conversation. The phonebook recommended: "That is all."
Says Ammon Shea:
This strikes me as an eminently more honest and forthright way to end a phone call than "good-bye." "Good-bye," "bye-bye," and all the other variants are ultimately contractions of the phrase "God Be with you" (or "with ye"). I don't know about you, but I don't really mean to say that when I end a conversation. I suppose I could say "ciao" — which does have a certain etymological background of coming from the Italian schiavo, which means "I am your slave," and I don't much want to say that either...
The more Ammon thought about it, the more he liked "That is all."
...For several decades the great newscaster Walter Cronkite would end his broadcasts by saying "And that's the way it is," a fine turn of phrase that has almost as much pith and truth to it as "That is all." Broadcast journalist Linda Ellerbee had a similar method of ending her news segments, with the trenchant "And so it goes." These are perfectly serviceable phrases, but even they don't have the clarity and utility of "That is all." I should like to see "That is all" make a comeback in colloquial speech, and I have resolved to attempt to adopt it in the few telephone conversations that I engage in.
Well,
this probably wasn't fair or even nice, but I decided to call Ammon
Shea to see if he practices what he preaches. He answered his phone with
a very standard "hello" and then, after I'd gotten permission to quote
from his book, when it was time to end our conversation, I gave him no
hint, no encouragement, I just waited to see how it would go...hoping to
hear him do his "That is all." But no...
He said, "bye."
0 Comments