Who was the first person recorded as using the term "Hello" as a greeting, what exactly was he doing at the time to use it, and what phrase did "Hello" famously take over? (The last part of the question will become clear if you answer the first two.)

zbeckabee

holla, hollo, a shout to attract attention, first recorded 1588. Perhaps from holla! "stop, cease." Popularity as a greeting coincides with use of the telephone, where it won out over Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion, ahoy. Central telephone exchange operators were known as hello-girls. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=hello&searchmode=none http://www.takeourword.com/et_h-j.html#hello May 28 07, 9:16 AM

MonkeyOnALeash

There was a heated argument between Bell, who contended that "Hoy Hoy" (Gaelic) was the proper phone greating and Thomas Edison who insisted that a simple Mark Twain greeting of "Hello" was sufficient. Hoy Hoy sounds quite silly to me but had we been accustomed to Hoy Hoy, I am certain that Hello would sound just as silly! Google "Hoy Hoy" and there will be a bunch of sites that support this. May 28 07, 12:20 PM

darkpresence

Can you provide a link, Monkey? I googled it and just got blog entries, Spanish, and Little Feat... May 28 07, 3:56 PM

Flynn_17

MonkeyonaLeash is the closest so far - but sorry, Zbeck, you're barking up the wrong tree there... May 28 07, 5:19 PM

collect

http://www.wonderquest.com/gravity-hello-momentum.htm "We say 'hello' on the phone because we were saying 'hello' commonly before Graham Bell invented the phone in 1876. In 1872, for instance, Mark Twain used 'hello' in his book, Roughing It: "A miner came out and said: 'Hello!'"" May 28 07, 7:01 PM

MonkeyOnALeash

"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 1872 (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. It was listed in dictionaries by 1883." "There are many different theories to the origins of the word. It may be a contraction of archaic English "whole be thou".[6] Another source may be the phrase "Hail, Thou", as in the Bible; Luke 1:28 and Matthew 27:14." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello "Dr. Bell himself wanted telephone calls to start with 'Hoy, hoy!' Depending on whom you believe, Bell's preferred salutation was derived either from a Gaelic greeting (Bell was born in Scotland) or from the nautical term 'Ahoy.'" http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/aug15.htm The preceding link is for you DP! There are many if you Google wisely. May 28 07, 7:11 PM