I think the reason why people say ¡®hello¡¯ is not only to greet people, but also to call people from a distance. Or you can say ¡°Hello? Are you there?¡± to make someone pay attention to you.

But sometimes I wonder, ¡®why¡¯ the word ¡®hello¡¯ was used when Alexander Graham Bell first envented the tellephone?

So I did some reserch.

In the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ¡®hello¡¯ comes from the ancient German word, hala, and hola. These words changed through the ages and became hallo, and hollo.

I also found out that these words were used to call quarries, or to call boatmen. As you can see, they were not a daily word.

But these expressions spread out very quickly to the public, and here is the ¡®hello¡¯ we know today.

And I there is another fact I found out wile I was googling things-

Alexander Graham Bell never used his girlfriend¡¯s name when he first succeeded to call his assistant!

Let me quote the p***e of fact I saw.

The word "Hello" actually came from hola which meant to stop and pay attention. Alexander Bell preferred to use ¡°Ähoy¡± as in the ships those days which co-incidentally was misheard by Edison.

I was really surprised. I¡¯ve always believed that ¡®hello¡¯ was Bell¡¯s girlfriend¡¯s name!

Plus, Bell never ¡®greeted¡¯ his secretary when he first succeeded his telephone call.

He merely said ¡°Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.¡±.

And he preferred ¡®ahoy¡¯ more than ¡®hello¡¯, as I have said.

Guess what- Thomas Edison didn¡¯t use ¡®hello¡¯ for the first time either!

He only popularized it, that¡¯s all.

Then WHO first used ¡®hello¡¯? Let me quote something I read- (again!)

The word ¡°hello¡± was also used in publications as early as 1833 – 34 years before the first telephone call. The earliest example is probably the 1833 American book called The Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett, of West Tennessee.

Through some googling, I found out when ¡®hello¡¯ was first used and hello-related-stories. I find it quite fascinating. How do you?