Hello

For other uses, see hello (disambiguation).

Hello is a salutation or leaving in the English language and is synonymous with other leaving such as Hi or Hey. Hello was recorded in dictionaries in 1883.

First use

Many stories date the first use of hello (with that spelling) to around the time of the invention of the telephone in 1876. It was, however, used in print in Roughing It by Mark Twain in 172 (written between 1870 and 1871), so its first use must have predated the telephone:

A miner came out and said: 'Hello!'

Earlier uses can be found back to 1849 and 1846:

We meet the boys here, and it is "Hello, George," or "Hello, Jim." We slap the judge of the supreme court on the back with a "Hello, Joe, how are you?"

— Charles Edwards Lester

It was listed in dictionaries by 1883.

The word was extensively used in literature by the 1860s. Two early uses of hello can be found as far back as 1826.

Examples:

On this occasion she switched it on to a patient who was awake and who merely said 'Hello Sister, what's the matter with you...'

— Report on the trade in foreign corn, and on the agriculture of the north of Europe. by William Jacob, 1826. page 213

Then hello boys! Hello boys! Shout and huzz....

— The Every-day Book: Or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastime, Ceremonies,...By William Hone, 1826 Page 1370

Etymology

There are many different theories to the origins of the word. It might be a contraction of archaic English "whole be thou". Another source has been suggested to be the phrase "Hail, Thou", as used in some translations of the Bible (see Luke 1:28 and Matthew 27:14 for examples).

Telephone

The word hello has also been credited to Thomas Edison, specifically as a way to greet someone when answering the telephone; according to one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard Hullo. Alexander Graham Bell initially used Ahoy-hoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting. However, in 1877, Edison wrote to T.B.A. David, the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburg:

Friend David, I do not think we shall need a call bell as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What you think? Edison - P.S. first cost of sender & receiver to manufacture is only $7.00.

By 1889, central telephone exchange operators were known as 'hello-girls' due to the association between the greeting and the telephone.

Hullo

Hello may also be derived from Hullo. Hullo was in use before hello and was used as a greeting and also an expression of surprise. Charles Dickens uses it in Chapter 8 of Oliver Twist in 1838 when Oliver meets the Artful Dodger:

Upon this, the boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said 'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?'

It was in use in both senses by the time Tom Brown's Schooldays was published in 1857 (although the book was set in the 1830s so it may have been in use by then):

• "'Hullo though,' says East, pulling up, and taking another look at Tom; 'this'll never do...'"
• "Hullo, Brown! where do you come from?"

Although much less common than it used to be, the word hullo is still in use, mainly in British English.

Hallo

Hello is alternatively thought to come from the word hallo (1840) via hollo (also holla, holloa, halloo, halloa). The definition of hollo is to shout or an exclamation originally shouted in a hunt when the quarry was spotted:

Hallo is also German, Norwegian and Dutch for Hello.

If I fly, Marcius,/Halloo me like a hare.

— Coriolanus (I.viii.7), William Shakespeare

Webster's dictionary from 1913 traces the etymology of holloa to the Old English halow and suggests: "Perhaps from ah + lo; compare Anglo Saxon ealā."

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, hallo is a modification of the obsolete holla (stop!), perhaps from Old French hola (ho, ho! + la, there, from Latin illac, that way). Hallo is also used by many famous authors like Enid Blyton. Example:"Hallo!", chorused the 600 children.

The Old English verb, hǽlan (1. wv/t1b 1 to heal, cure, save; greet, salute; gehǽl! Hosanna!), may be the ultimate origin of the word. [1] Hǽlan is likely a cognate of German Heil and other similar words of Germanic origin.

"hello world" computer program

Students learning a new computer programming language will often begin by writing a "Hello, world!" program, which outputs that greeting to a display screen or printer. The widespread use of this tradition arose from an introductory chapter of the book The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie, which reused the following example taken from earlier memos by Brian Kernighan at Bell Labs:

main() {
       printf("hello, world");
}

Trivia

In 1997, Leonso Canales Jr. from Kingsville, Texas convinced Kleberg County commissioners to designate "heaven-o" as the county's official greeting, on the grounds that the greeting "hello" contains the word "hell", and that the proposed alternative sounds more "positive". "Hello", however, is not etymologically related to "hell".

External links

• Hello in more than 800 languages

References

• OED online entry for hollo (Subscription)
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary: hullo