2018-11-21 Wed

Today is “World Hello Day”. How many of us are amazed that a voice can be transferred over a long distance? No one… Because since we are born, talking on the telephone or mobile phone is very common. But there were times when people were very curious and didn’t believe it!

Hello is often the beginning of a conversation but have you ever wondered as to why we start a telephonic conversation with that word?

This is a popular hoax on the internet that "Hello" was the name of Alexander Graham Bell's girlfriend/wife, which is not true. Mabel Hubbard was Bell's girlfriend who he later marries on 1877. The telephone was patented in 1876.

Graham Bell actually never used the term "hello”. The first call he made was to his assistant who was in the adjoining room and he said "Mr Watson, Come-here. I want you." The “ahoy-hoy” was Alexander Graham Bell’s preferred way to answer the phone. Ahoy-hoy derives from the term “ahoy”, which is generally associated with being a nautical term used for hailing ships.

The use of hello as a telephone greeting has been credited to Thomas Edison. In 1877 he wrote in a letter to the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburgh, where he suggested that using “hello” was the best way to start a telephone conversation because it was easily heard and distinguished from other words, even over long distance transmissions.

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

Now you know why we always say Hello when we receive the phone call. Keep talking and continue with Hello!

The stamp depicted alongside was issued in 2002 by the UK. It features a horizontally formatted denominatedless first-class stamp with “hello” in white on a blue sky.

Image Courtesy: Linns.com