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So, why do we use ‘hello’ as a conversation-starter?
Reading time: 5 minutes
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- 4 July 2024

What do you say when you answer the phone, when someone introduces you, when a friend introduces you, or when you need to get someone’s attention? You say hello, hi, good afternoon, good to meet you or a variation thereof, sometimes with a handshake, a bow, one or more kisses, air-kisses or – if you’re lucky and in the mood – a hug.
While OK is the most spoken word on the planet, hello is the English word that most people learn first. It’s so ubiquitous that it’s surprising how recent it is. Though the words may change, the need to greet has long been with us. While hello’s journey involves different languages, cultural shifts and new technologies, compared to Good morning or How are you?, it’s a youngster in English’s thousand-plus-year history.
Old English greetings were about both salutation and health. Common Old English greetings included Hū færest þū (How fare you?) and Wes hāl (Be well). Early modern English expressions commonly made reference to the time of day, like Good morrow, which appears in Shakespeare and as early as the 1300s in one of Chaucer’s tales. Nowadays, we occasionally also hear Good morning and Good evening.
The popular early modern English hail appears in Shakespeare as a greeting (Hail to your grace!) and an acclamation (Hail, Caesar!). Since it was sometimes shouted (from a horse, across a river, from a tower), there are several pre-1800 variants, including hollo, hallo and halloa. While heil dates back to the 13th-century Scandinavian heil, it has largely fallen out of use since the end of World War II.
So, how did we get from How fares thou? and How do ye? to hello? The latter was popularised by the adoption of the telephone. Although Alexander Graham Bell ultimately gave us the phone, Thomas Edison created a better transmitter for a rival of Bell’s company. Edison considered the telephone a business device, with a permanently open line between two parties. But how would party one know that party two wanted to speak, and vice versa? A conversation-starter was needed. Edison felt that hello fit the purpose.
Bell preferred the nautical ahoy, which derives from the Dutch hoi (hello). According to the Urban Dictionary, ahoy-hoy can be used among others “to greet or get the attention of small sloop-rigged coasting ship” [sic] (cited in Krulwich).
Hello was suggested in the introductory guides in the first phonebooks. In its guide, the first public exchange – which opened in 1878 – vacillated between Hello and What is wanted? After bells were added to phones, people continued to open with hello; the directories recommended that one also state your name. The exchange operators were known as hello-girls (1889). Other greetings were Do I get you? and Are you there? The sign-offs included And so it goes and That is all!
Prof. Allen Koenigsberg recalls an Edison employee’s account of a public exchange: “The shouting and hullabaloo inside the laboratory can only be imagined. Being hard of hearing, Edison went about his work unperturbed, while the rest of us were nearly deafened as ‘Hello-hello-hello’ re-echoed from corner to corner” (cited in Grimes).
Like the telephone, hello “was a liberator and a social leveler” (Grimes). According to Prof. Koenigsberg, “The phone overnight cut right through the 19th-century etiquette that you don’t speak to anyone unless you’ve been introduced” (cited in Grimes).
Formerly an Americanism, hello is now nearly as common as hullo in Britain. In the 1920s, Fowler (UK) listed the variants halloo, hallo, halloa, halloo, hello, hillo, hilloa, holla, holler, hollo, holloa, hollow and hullo. Dictionary.com lists these as well as halow, hillo and hollo. From the Middle French holá, hallo was used among others to spur on hunting dogs. Similarly, the Middle English halouen / hallouing reffered to “to shout in the chase”.
Holla or hola can be found as far back as 1523, in a translation of Jean Froissart’s Cronycles: “Than therle of Buckyngham sayd / hola: cease for it is late” (cited in Witton). Halowynge appeared in 1542. Here’s the poet and dramatist John Lyly in 1589: “Hollow there…” (cited in Witton). The Oxford English Dictionary cites the Old High German hala / hola, the emphatic imperative of halon / holon (to fetch), “used especially in hailing a ferryman” (cited in Etymology Online).
According to Etymology Online, halow – a shipman’s cry to incite effort – is from the mid-15th century, while harou (from French) – a cry of distress – is from the late 13th century.
Nowadays, hello can also be used toward someone who has been inattentive, or to call into question the addressee’s common sense, comprehension or intelligence: “She asked me if I’d just arrived, and I was like, ‘Hello, I’ve been here for two hours.’ ” It can also express surprise: “Well, hello, what do we have here?!” The title of the lead single of Adele’s album 25 (Hello) is apt, as it marks her return to music after a hiatus of three years.
The informal howdy (e.g. Howdy, stranger) (plural noun: howdies), which dates to the early 19th century, is strongly associated with the western U.S. states. It’s an alteration of How do ye?, How d’ye? (18th century, Southern England) and How do you do?
Globalisation and increased cultural diversity have introduced, among others, bonjour (French) and hola (Spanish), which are increasingly common in multicultural or aspirational communities as well as among wise-asses. Hi, which is considered more informal, was recorded much earlier than hello, having developed from the Middle English hy, similar to hey and ha. The extended form hiya dates to 1940. In the digital age, hi, hey and sup (from what’s up / whassup) are often used to initiate a conversation, sometimes with an emoji. Hey Siri, Hello Alexa and OK Google have been reported.
Although ahoy didn’t catch on, Bell used it until his death. But it does have fans. Monty Burns, the evil owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in The Simpsons, regularly used ahoy-hoy to answer the phone. We may hear it on International Talk Like a Pirate Day (19 September). “And that, me hearties, is something for which we landlubbers should be very thankful” (Frye).
When we say hello, we acknowledge others. Hopefully, when we next greet someone, we’ll be aware of the power our greetings hold to enquire about others’ health, express our relatedness, or to build or renew bonds. And so it goes. That is all. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Sources
William Grimes: Great ‘hello’ mystery is solved. 5 March 1992.
Etymology Online: Hello.
Etymology Online: Hi.
David Wilton: Hello. 28 December 2020.
Devon Frye: Why do we say hello? 2 May 2021.
Robert Krulwich: A (shockingly) short history of ‘hello’. 17 February 2011.
Cambridge Dictionary: Meaning of hello in English.
Dictionary: Why do we say “hello” and “hi”? 13 October 2020.
Merriam-Webster: Where does ‘hello’ come from?
Linda Callaway: The origin of the word “hello”: A fascinating journey. 27 September 2023.
BBC 6 minute English: Hello, hello. Episode 180301, 1 March 2018.
Songfacts: Hello by Adele.