Hello

• Hello, with that spelling, was used in publications as early as 1833. These include an 1833 American book called The Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett, of West Tennessee,[2] which was reprinted that same year in The London Literary Gazette.[3]

• The word was extensively used in literature by the 1860s.[4]

• Etymology• According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hello is an alteration of hallo, hollo,[5] which came

from Old High German "halâ,holâ, emphatic imperative of halôn, holôn to fetch, used especially in hailing a ferryman."[6] It also connects the development ofhello to the influence of an earlier form, holla, whose origin is in the French holà (roughly, 'whoa there!', from French là'there').[7] As in addition to hello, halloo,[8] hallo, hollo, hullo and (rarely) hillo also exist as variants or related words, the word can be spelt using any of all five vowels.[citation needed

]

• Telephone• The use of hello as a telephone greeting has been credited to Thomas Edison; according to

one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard Hullo.[9] Alexander Graham Bell initially used Ahoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting.[10][11]However, in 1877, Edison wrote to T.B.A. David, the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company ofPittsburgh: