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This is interesting: we all know that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, but who invented the “Hello?” greeting we say when answering it?
Bell's famous first words spoken over what we now call the telephone -- "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." -- were delivered without any greeting at all.When he did weigh in on the subject, Bell proposed using "ahoy, ahoy," the age-old seafarer's hail. And, in fact, ahoy was the first greeting used, until Edison suggested hello.
Aug. 15, 1877: 'Hello. Can You Hear Me Now?'As you can see, the article says that the "Hello?" greeting was formulated by Thomas Edison, and from the looks of things the word "hello" wasn't very frequently used in the English language until after its adoption within the phone's universe. So we have Edison to thank for the light bulb as well as our telephone manners!
