Hello

Origin of: Hello

Hello

Hello originally was not a form of greeting but more an expression of surprise and dates in this sense from about 1840 and grew out of earlier cries like hallo, hullo or halloo which were popular foxhunting cries dating from 16th century. It was only from the mid to late 19th century that hello evolved into a greeting and then grew in popularity because of the telephone, which Alexander Graham Bell invented in 1876. The question arose as to how one should answer a ringing telephone. Bell’s first choice was Ahoy and there is some evidence that the first phones were indeed answered in this way. Thomas Edison, who perfected the telephone by inventing the telephone transmitter, preferred the word hello and, by 1880, it had become the standard way of answering the telephone. By 1889, telephone exchange operators were known as hello-girls.