Think back about the past few days. How many times did you say “hello”? The word “hello” comes from nautical English: “hallo” or “halloa” was a form of address used by sailors between ships. The use of “hello” as a generic form of address is relatively recent and stems from the acceptance of a device commonly known as the telephone.
The noun “telephone” first entered the English language is 1835 was defined as "a system for conveying words over distance by musical notes." In 1828, the French composer Jean-François Sudré (1787-1862) had devised a communication system in which each tone played over several octaves represented a letter of the alphabet. The word itself came from “télé” meaning “far” and “phone” meaning sound. While Sudré’s system was interesting, it never really caught on. Then, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented a communication device which he called the telephone. This device didn’t use musical tones, but rather transmitted the human voice over a wire.
In 1876, English was generally spoken between people who could see each other and therefore there will visual clues regarding important social features, such as gender and social class, which were important in initiating conversations. However, with the telephone these visual clues were not present. In his book Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language, Seth Lerer writes:
“But the problem for the early telephone was how to address someone you could not see. Forms of address are invariably linked to social class and gender. When you meet someone, you gauge his or her social class by dress or bearing or by his or her speech to you. The conundrum for the telephone was what to say first to a speaker whose class or gender you could not know.”
The solution was to borrow the old nautical haling term and to modify it slightly to become our present-day “hello.” Seth Lerer writes:
“The word hello became so current that the operators at the phone exchanges (often, young women with mellifluous voices) came to be known as hello-girls.”
By 1878, “telephone” was also being used as a verb and people could speaking of “telephoning” other people.
Shown above is an old crank-style phone on display at the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum in Tillamook, Oregon.
Shown above is an old telephone switchboard on display at Historical Society Museum of Poulsbo, Washington.
Welcome to Street Prophets Saturday, an open thread at the intersection of Politics and Religion. Do you answer the phone with “hello” or do you use some other greeting?