WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.700 So, I want you to try a little experiment with 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:05.980 me. Yeah, I'm game. Well, I mean, you and the 00:00:05.980 --> 00:00:07.700 listener. It's going to sound really simple, 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:10.500 but just stick with me. Think about the very 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:12.740 first word you spoke today. Or, you know, if 00:00:12.740 --> 00:00:14.039 you haven't spoken to anyone yet, think about 00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:15.939 the first word you said the last time your phone 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:18.940 rang. Right. I'm willing to bet pretty good money 00:00:18.940 --> 00:00:22.239 that the word was hello. Yeah, that is a very 00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:25.219 safe bet. I mean, it is the absolute default 00:00:25.219 --> 00:00:28.100 setting for human interaction in the English 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:32.119 language. It really is. It's so mundane, so incredibly 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:35.240 common that it feels like it's just part of our 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:37.700 DNA at this point. Like, didn't the Romans say 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:40.280 hello? Didn't cavemen grunt something that sounded 00:00:40.280 --> 00:00:42.780 vaguely like hello? It just feels ancient. It 00:00:42.780 --> 00:00:44.619 certainly feels fundamental. It's the linguistic 00:00:44.619 --> 00:00:46.780 equivalent of a handshake. You don't even think 00:00:46.780 --> 00:00:48.909 about it before you do it. But... And this is 00:00:48.909 --> 00:00:51.570 exactly why I love the stack of research we have 00:00:51.570 --> 00:00:54.590 for today's deep dive. That feeling is a total 00:00:54.590 --> 00:00:57.530 lie. Completely fabricated by history. Yeah. 00:00:58.049 --> 00:01:00.329 We have been digging through these etymological 00:01:00.329 --> 00:01:02.829 dictionaries, historical letters, and some very 00:01:02.829 --> 00:01:05.349 dusty archives. And they tell a completely different 00:01:05.349 --> 00:01:07.840 story. This isn't a story about a polite greeting 00:01:07.840 --> 00:01:10.439 that survived the ages. This is actually a story 00:01:10.439 --> 00:01:13.500 about cutting -edge technology, a really fierce 00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:17.439 rivalry between two massive egos, and a word 00:01:17.439 --> 00:01:19.900 that honestly didn't really exist until five 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:22.200 minutes ago in historical terms. And that is 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:25.180 the mission for our Deem Dive today. We are going 00:01:25.180 --> 00:01:27.280 to completely debunk the assumption that hello 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:30.560 is ancient. The reality is, if you hopped in 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:33.319 a time machine and went back to, say, the signing 00:01:33.319 --> 00:01:35.980 of the Declaration of Independence, nobody would 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:38.060 know what you were saying. Which is crazy. The 00:01:38.060 --> 00:01:40.159 modern use of the word hello is actually younger 00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:42.760 than the United States. Which is just wild to 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:45.459 consider. But to hook you in even further, listener, 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:49.099 there is this bizarre alternative reality lurking 00:01:49.099 --> 00:01:51.840 in these documents. If history had gone just 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:54.219 a little bit differently, like if one specific 00:01:54.219 --> 00:01:56.219 inventor had been a better marketer than the 00:01:56.219 --> 00:01:58.599 other, we wouldn't be saying hello at all. No, 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:00.739 we wouldn't. We would all be answering our smartphones 00:02:00.739 --> 00:02:03.140 by shouting a nautical term used by pirates. 00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:06.209 It sounds like a joke. But it was very nearly 00:02:06.209 --> 00:02:08.569 the standard. We came razor close to living in 00:02:08.569 --> 00:02:11.289 a world where every serious business call started 00:02:11.289 --> 00:02:13.909 with ahoy. So let's unpack this. I want to start 00:02:13.909 --> 00:02:15.590 with the timeline because this really threw me 00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:17.090 off when I first saw the notes. I'm looking at 00:02:17.090 --> 00:02:19.110 this and you're telling me that hello spelled 00:02:19.110 --> 00:02:23.289 H -E -L -L -O is not an old word. Not in the 00:02:23.289 --> 00:02:25.229 way we use it and certainly not with that spelling. 00:02:25.370 --> 00:02:28.629 If you look at the written record, hello is surprisingly 00:02:28.629 --> 00:02:32.050 modern. The very first time we see it attested 00:02:32.050 --> 00:02:35.009 in writing spelled exactly that way is in 1826. 00:02:35.569 --> 00:02:38.349 1826. Wow. OK, let's put that into context. Beethoven 00:02:38.349 --> 00:02:41.370 was still alive in 1826. Right. John Adams and 00:02:41.370 --> 00:02:43.830 Thomas Jefferson had literally just died. The 00:02:43.830 --> 00:02:46.090 steam locomotive was brand new, but the word 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:49.430 hello was just being born. Precisely. It appeared 00:02:49.430 --> 00:02:51.949 in an edition of the Norwich Courier. That was 00:02:51.949 --> 00:02:54.150 a newspaper out of Norwich, Connecticut, on October 00:02:54.150 --> 00:02:58.020 18th, 1826. Before that exact moment, you just 00:02:58.020 --> 00:03:00.520 don't see it. You see cousins of the word, which 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:03.360 we'll get to later, but the specific H -E -L 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:05.919 -L -O spelling was virtually non -existent. So 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:07.939 it pops up in a newspaper in Connecticut. Does 00:03:07.939 --> 00:03:10.280 it take off immediately? Is it like a viral trend 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:12.860 from the 1800s? It's more of a slow burn. It 00:03:12.860 --> 00:03:14.740 starts to trickle into the American lexicon. 00:03:14.939 --> 00:03:18.860 By 1833, it shows up in a book called The Sketches 00:03:18.860 --> 00:03:21.280 and Eccentricities of Curd David Crockett of 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:23.639 West Tennessee. Davy Crockett. Okay, so it's 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:25.680 getting some real pop culture traction in the 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:28.680 1830s. Right. And by the 1860s, it becomes much 00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:31.879 more common in literature. But... And this is 00:03:31.879 --> 00:03:33.800 a really crucial distinction we need to make. 00:03:34.060 --> 00:03:36.300 When people in the mid -19th century used the 00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:39.240 word hello, they were not being polite. They 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:40.800 weren't walking up to a friend on the street, 00:03:40.900 --> 00:03:43.139 tipping their hat and saying, oh, hello, nice 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:44.900 to see you. Wait, so if I'm walking down a street 00:03:44.900 --> 00:03:47.680 in London or New York in 1850 and I see a buddy 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:50.099 and I say hello, he's going to look at me weird. 00:03:50.379 --> 00:03:53.099 He might actually be offended or at least startled. 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:56.379 Back then, hello wasn't a greeting. It was an 00:03:56.379 --> 00:03:59.539 exclamation of surprise or a way to forcefully 00:03:59.539 --> 00:04:01.460 call attention to something. Like a warning. 00:04:01.699 --> 00:04:04.020 Exactly. Imagine you're walking down the street 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:06.060 and you see someone drop their wallet or you 00:04:06.060 --> 00:04:08.979 see a horse about to run into a busy crowd. You 00:04:08.979 --> 00:04:11.960 might yell, hello, watch out. Oh, I see. It's 00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:14.080 forceful. It's an interruption. Yes, it's an 00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:16.680 interjection. It basically says, hey, you. Or 00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:19.339 what's this? It wasn't a warm, fuzzy opener to 00:04:19.339 --> 00:04:22.040 a conversation. If you wanted to greet someone 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:24.500 back then, you'd use time -specific phrases. 00:04:25.069 --> 00:04:27.069 Like, good morning. Right. Good morning, good 00:04:27.069 --> 00:04:29.790 afternoon, or how do you do? That is such a funny 00:04:29.790 --> 00:04:32.589 shift to wrap your head around. We use it now 00:04:32.589 --> 00:04:35.750 to gently start a connection, to sort of open 00:04:35.750 --> 00:04:38.910 the door. But it started as a way to basically 00:04:38.910 --> 00:04:41.589 yell at people to pay attention. And if we dig 00:04:41.589 --> 00:04:44.170 into the etymology provided by the Oxford English 00:04:44.170 --> 00:04:46.850 Dictionary, the aggression really makes sense. 00:04:47.980 --> 00:04:51.319 Hello is essentially an alteration of older words 00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:54.819 like hallo or hollow. And those actually trace 00:04:54.819 --> 00:04:57.720 back to old high German words like halla or holla. 00:04:57.839 --> 00:04:59.600 And what did those mean? They were imperative 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:02.420 commands. Specifically, they were used to hail 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:05.420 a ferryman. A ferryman? Like across a river? 00:05:05.699 --> 00:05:07.579 Picture the scene. You're in medieval Europe. 00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:09.579 You're standing on the bank of a foggy river. 00:05:09.740 --> 00:05:11.860 The boat is on the other side. You don't have 00:05:11.860 --> 00:05:13.759 a flare gun. You don't have a phone. You just 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:16.160 have your lungs. You cup your hands and you scream, 00:05:16.339 --> 00:05:19.160 holla! You were literally shouting at a boat 00:05:19.160 --> 00:05:21.939 driver to come pick you up. Fetch me! I love 00:05:21.939 --> 00:05:25.240 that image. So the root of our most polite, civilized 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:27.819 greeting is basically screaming at a guy to get 00:05:27.819 --> 00:05:30.199 his boat over here. It goes even deeper. There's 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:32.079 also a strong connection to the French word hola. 00:05:32.279 --> 00:05:35.480 If you break that down, it comes from hol, plus 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:39.600 la, which means there. Oh, hol there. Roughly 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:42.860 translated, it means... Whoa there or stop. It 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:45.160 was used to stop horses from running or to stop 00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:47.220 a physical fight in the street. OK, so let's 00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:49.740 recap the resume of this word so far. We have 00:05:49.740 --> 00:05:51.779 a word that evolved from shouting at ferrymen, 00:05:51.899 --> 00:05:55.139 telling runaway horses to stop moving or expressing 00:05:55.139 --> 00:05:57.819 shock that someone dropped their wallet. It's 00:05:57.819 --> 00:05:59.879 loud, it's rude and it's entirely functional. 00:05:59.939 --> 00:06:02.550 Correct. And somehow this rough around the edges 00:06:02.550 --> 00:06:05.709 shout became the universal way to say hi. How 00:06:05.709 --> 00:06:07.649 on earth did that transition happen? Because 00:06:07.649 --> 00:06:10.290 usually language tries to become more polite 00:06:10.290 --> 00:06:13.189 over time, not less. This brings us to the real 00:06:13.189 --> 00:06:16.110 pivot point of our story. The catalyst that changed 00:06:16.110 --> 00:06:19.089 this specific piece of language forever wasn't 00:06:19.089 --> 00:06:22.410 a poet or a king or a social movement. It was 00:06:22.410 --> 00:06:25.290 a machine. The telephone. The telephone revolution. 00:06:26.110 --> 00:06:28.689 You have to understand the psychological shift 00:06:28.689 --> 00:06:31.490 the telephone caused. Think about how people 00:06:31.490 --> 00:06:33.790 greeted each other before the phone existed. 00:06:34.110 --> 00:06:37.269 You had visual cues. Sure. You saw someone approaching. 00:06:37.629 --> 00:06:39.689 Exactly. You knew it was morning or evening. 00:06:39.769 --> 00:06:42.110 You'd bow. You'd smile. You'd shake hands. You 00:06:42.110 --> 00:06:44.790 had context. Right. Communication was embodied. 00:06:44.949 --> 00:06:46.970 You were physically there. But the telephone 00:06:46.970 --> 00:06:50.009 completely broke that. It severed the voice from 00:06:50.009 --> 00:06:52.870 the body. It connected people across time zones, 00:06:53.149 --> 00:06:55.810 potentially. But more importantly, it removed 00:06:55.810 --> 00:06:59.269 the visual component entirely. When that bell 00:06:59.269 --> 00:07:02.110 rang, you didn't know who was there. That must 00:07:02.110 --> 00:07:04.829 have been terrifying at first. It was. You didn't 00:07:04.829 --> 00:07:07.009 know if it was your boss, your wife, or a complete 00:07:07.009 --> 00:07:09.149 stranger. And you didn't know when they were. 00:07:09.329 --> 00:07:11.870 It created this moment of blindness. Exactly. 00:07:11.870 --> 00:07:13.930 A social blindness. You couldn't just launch 00:07:13.930 --> 00:07:15.589 into conversation because you didn't even know 00:07:15.589 --> 00:07:17.920 if the connection was live yet. You needed a 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:20.860 handshake signal, a sonic handshake, to verify 00:07:20.860 --> 00:07:23.240 the channel was open before you started talking. 00:07:23.500 --> 00:07:26.379 And this is where the rivalry kicks in. Because 00:07:26.379 --> 00:07:30.879 we had two titans of invention who completely 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:33.680 disagreed on how we should handle this new awkwardness. 00:07:33.860 --> 00:07:36.560 We have Alexander Graham Bell, the man who actually 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:39.480 invented the thing, and Thomas Edison, the wizard 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:42.120 of Menlo Park. And they were effectively fighting 00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:45.459 a war over user interface design. That's a really 00:07:45.459 --> 00:07:47.379 great way to frame it. It was a 19th century 00:07:47.379 --> 00:07:50.199 UI battle. Alexander Graham Bell, the father 00:07:50.199 --> 00:07:52.899 of the telephone, had a very specific idea for 00:07:52.899 --> 00:07:55.019 this. He was a bit of a traditionalist, perhaps, 00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:57.240 or maybe just heavily influenced by that nautical 00:07:57.240 --> 00:07:59.759 history we mentioned. He felt the proper way 00:07:59.759 --> 00:08:01.600 to answer the phone to establish that invisible 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:05.589 link was to say, Ahoy! Ahoy. Ahoy, ahoy. I really 00:08:05.589 --> 00:08:07.550 want everyone listening to try saying that out 00:08:07.550 --> 00:08:10.930 loud right now. Ahoy, ahoy. It feels so jaunty. 00:08:11.089 --> 00:08:12.550 It does. It feels like you're about to hoist 00:08:12.550 --> 00:08:14.930 a sail. I'm just imagining a high -powered Wall 00:08:14.930 --> 00:08:17.470 Street business executive in the 1980s picking 00:08:17.470 --> 00:08:20.329 up a massive brick phone and barking, ahoy, ahoy, 00:08:20.370 --> 00:08:23.149 sell all my stocks. It changes the entire vibe 00:08:23.149 --> 00:08:25.029 of the 20th century. It sounds totally ridiculous 00:08:25.029 --> 00:08:27.550 to us now, but Bell was deadly serious about 00:08:27.550 --> 00:08:29.629 this. He used ahoy for the rest of his life. 00:08:29.730 --> 00:08:32.200 He never gave it up. He refused to switch. He 00:08:32.200 --> 00:08:34.019 borrowed it from the ships, just like that old 00:08:34.019 --> 00:08:36.960 ferryman connection. For him, the telephone was 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:39.679 quite literally a line tossed across a distance, 00:08:39.860 --> 00:08:42.840 so Ahoy made perfect logical sense. So Bell's 00:08:42.840 --> 00:08:45.480 firmly on Team Ahoy. But obviously, we don't 00:08:45.480 --> 00:08:47.600 say that today. If I answered the phone with 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:49.659 Ahoy, people would think I was having a stroke 00:08:49.659 --> 00:08:52.820 or playing a weird prank. So Edison must have 00:08:52.820 --> 00:08:55.120 had a different plan. Edison championed Hello. 00:08:55.659 --> 00:08:58.190 And we actually have the receipts on this. There 00:08:58.190 --> 00:09:00.370 is a specific letter preserved in the archives 00:09:00.370 --> 00:09:03.210 that pinpoints the exact moment Hello won the 00:09:03.210 --> 00:09:06.350 war. It's from Thomas Edison to a man named TBA 00:09:06.350 --> 00:09:08.929 David. And who is TBA David? He was the president 00:09:08.929 --> 00:09:10.730 of the Central District and Printing Telegraph 00:09:10.730 --> 00:09:13.350 Company in Pittsburgh. Basically, a guy running 00:09:13.350 --> 00:09:16.090 the infrastructure. The letter is dated August 00:09:16.090 --> 00:09:20.450 15, 1877. August 1877. So the telephone is an 00:09:20.450 --> 00:09:23.149 absolute baby. It's barely out of the lab. What 00:09:23.149 --> 00:09:25.679 does Edison say to him in this letter? It's fascinating 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.720 because it's so incredibly practical. Edison 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:31.940 isn't talking about social niceties at all. He's 00:09:31.940 --> 00:09:34.139 in consulting an etiquette book. He's talking 00:09:34.139 --> 00:09:37.000 about technical specs. He writes, Friend David, 00:09:37.159 --> 00:09:39.639 I do not think we shall need a call bell, as 00:09:39.639 --> 00:09:42.659 hello can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. Wait, 00:09:42.700 --> 00:09:44.740 I want to linger on that for a second. I do not 00:09:44.740 --> 00:09:46.480 think we shall need a call bell. He's trying 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:48.960 to get rid of a piece of hardware. Right. Early 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:51.789 phones are clunky and complicated. The big question 00:09:51.789 --> 00:09:54.409 was, how do you even know someone is trying to 00:09:54.409 --> 00:09:56.970 talk to you? Do you install a separate expensive 00:09:56.970 --> 00:09:59.429 mechanical bell system to ring on the other end? 00:09:59.490 --> 00:10:02.870 Like a literal bell. Yes. But Edison, ever the 00:10:02.870 --> 00:10:06.370 pragmatist, argued that the word hello was distinct 00:10:06.370 --> 00:10:09.070 enough and sharp enough that if you just shouted 00:10:09.070 --> 00:10:11.129 it into the receiver, the person on the other 00:10:11.129 --> 00:10:13.230 end would hear it loud and clear without needing 00:10:13.230 --> 00:10:16.090 extra hardware. So hello didn't win because it 00:10:16.090 --> 00:10:19.000 was polite. It won because it was loud. Essentially, 00:10:19.139 --> 00:10:22.019 yes. It cuts through the static. Think about 00:10:22.019 --> 00:10:24.799 the acoustics of the two words. Ahoy is a bit 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:28.379 soft. It has those round, rolling vowels. Hello 00:10:28.379 --> 00:10:30.779 has that sharp H to start the breath, and then 00:10:30.779 --> 00:10:33.340 the resonant O at the end. It pierces. It was 00:10:33.340 --> 00:10:36.059 a technical decision based purely on volume and 00:10:36.059 --> 00:10:38.879 clarity. That is classic Edison. It's not about 00:10:38.879 --> 00:10:41.039 the romance of the sea. It's just about the efficiency 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:44.100 of the machine. And typical Edison. He included 00:10:44.100 --> 00:10:47.049 a postscript in that letter. about the cost of 00:10:47.049 --> 00:10:49.590 course he did what was the bottom line he noted 00:10:49.590 --> 00:10:52.049 that the cost to manufacture the sender and receiver 00:10:52.049 --> 00:10:55.350 was only seven dollars by using hello instead 00:10:55.350 --> 00:10:58.409 of a complex signaling bill system he was keeping 00:10:58.409 --> 00:11:00.730 the device incredibly simple and cheap that is 00:11:00.730 --> 00:11:03.330 unbelievable we say hello to our grandmothers 00:11:03.330 --> 00:11:05.669 to our spouses to our children because thomas 00:11:05.669 --> 00:11:07.490 addison wanted to save seven bucks on a bell 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:11.450 in 1877. in a way yes And because of Edison's 00:11:11.450 --> 00:11:13.350 massive influence and the fact that his telephone 00:11:13.350 --> 00:11:16.190 systems became the commercial standard, the word 00:11:16.190 --> 00:11:18.409 traveled with the technology. It was literally 00:11:18.409 --> 00:11:20.629 bundled with the hardware. It really did spread 00:11:20.629 --> 00:11:22.750 like a virus then. It went from zero to hero 00:11:22.750 --> 00:11:26.490 overnight. The speed was staggering. By 1880, 00:11:26.649 --> 00:11:28.690 which is just three years after that letter to 00:11:28.690 --> 00:11:32.009 TVA David, there was a major telephone operators 00:11:32.009 --> 00:11:34.929 convention in Niagara Falls. And guess what was 00:11:34.929 --> 00:11:36.789 printed on all their name tags? Let me guess. 00:11:36.830 --> 00:11:39.980 It wasn't ahoy. It was the word hello. It had 00:11:39.980 --> 00:11:41.779 already become the official badge of the industry, 00:11:41.899 --> 00:11:45.620 and by 1889, the operators at the central exchanges, 00:11:46.019 --> 00:11:47.919 who were mostly women connecting the lines manually, 00:11:48.139 --> 00:11:51.759 became colloquially known as Hello girls. Hello 00:11:51.759 --> 00:11:54.580 girls. So the word became inextricably linked 00:11:54.580 --> 00:11:56.620 to the device itself. You couldn't have one without 00:11:56.620 --> 00:11:58.700 the other. It's almost like the word Google today. 00:11:58.759 --> 00:12:01.179 It's a brand name that just became a verb for 00:12:01.179 --> 00:12:04.240 everyone. Exactly. Before the phone, you shouted 00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:07.000 hello at a wolf or a fairy. After the phone, 00:12:07.059 --> 00:12:09.539 you said hello to your neighbor. The technology 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:12.360 completely recontextualized the word. It stripped 00:12:12.360 --> 00:12:14.559 away the aggression over time and left only the 00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:16.919 utility. Now we want to pivot a bit here because 00:12:16.919 --> 00:12:19.460 while hello won the war, it wasn't the only spelling 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:21.320 up. there. When I'm reading old British novels 00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:23.399 or even just looking at older texts in general, 00:12:23.480 --> 00:12:25.440 I feel like I see it spelled differently all 00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:28.799 the time. It's not always H -E -L -L -O. No, 00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:31.399 it isn't, and this speaks to the deep etymology 00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:34.700 of the word. The Oxford English Dictionary actually 00:12:34.700 --> 00:12:37.159 notes that because the word is derived from these 00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:39.519 shouts and hollers, it wasn't standardized for 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:41.960 a very long time. It can actually be spelled 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:45.500 with all five vowels. Wait, all of them? A -E 00:12:45.500 --> 00:12:49.299 -I -O -U? Yes. Hello, hello, hello, and hello. 00:12:49.620 --> 00:12:52.360 Hello. That sounds like something a cartoon character 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:54.779 would say. It's definitely rare, but it's in 00:12:54.779 --> 00:12:57.740 the record. Hello with a U is probably the one 00:12:57.740 --> 00:13:00.080 you recognize most from literature, though. It's 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:02.460 listed as a chiefly British variant. Right, I 00:13:02.460 --> 00:13:04.639 can totally hear it in a British accent. Hello, 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:06.779 what's this then? It sounds a bit bewildered. 00:13:06.899 --> 00:13:09.700 Exactly. It appears in print as early as 1803. 00:13:10.580 --> 00:13:13.919 Charles Dickens used hello in 1850, and again 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:16.710 it was used as an exclamation of surprise. But 00:13:16.710 --> 00:13:18.450 then you have the older variants like hollow 00:13:18.450 --> 00:13:20.889 and halloo, and these are where the word really 00:13:20.889 --> 00:13:22.889 shows its teeth. This goes back to the hunting 00:13:22.889 --> 00:13:26.129 tradition, right? Correct. Hollow was originally 00:13:26.129 --> 00:13:28.110 shouted in a hunt when the quarry was spotted. 00:13:28.409 --> 00:13:30.370 It's a sudden burst of sound meant to trigger 00:13:30.370 --> 00:13:32.929 adrenaline. It's a signal to the dogs and the 00:13:32.929 --> 00:13:35.070 other hunters that the chase is on. I think we 00:13:35.070 --> 00:13:36.669 have a Shakespeare quote about this in the notes, 00:13:36.710 --> 00:13:39.409 don't we? We do. In Coriolanus, Shakespeare writes, 00:13:39.529 --> 00:13:42.750 Hello me like a hare. Hello me like a hare. So 00:13:42.750 --> 00:13:44.909 he's saying, shout at me like you're hunting 00:13:44.909 --> 00:13:47.750 a rabbit. That is visceral. That is definitely 00:13:47.750 --> 00:13:49.809 not a friendly high. It's violent. It implies 00:13:49.809 --> 00:13:52.330 being targeted. And Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 00:13:52.409 --> 00:13:54.490 in The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, which was 00:13:54.490 --> 00:13:58.389 written way back in 1798, uses hollow. in a very 00:13:58.389 --> 00:14:01.129 similar desperate way oh that's a classic water 00:14:01.129 --> 00:14:03.690 water everywhere right and in that poem there's 00:14:03.690 --> 00:14:06.809 a line that goes nor any day for food or play 00:14:06.809 --> 00:14:09.929 came to the mariners hollow oof okay so think 00:14:09.929 --> 00:14:11.950 about the context there they are stuck at sea 00:14:11.950 --> 00:14:14.269 they are dying of thirst they are shouting hollow 00:14:14.269 --> 00:14:16.909 at a bird or at a passing ship in the distance 00:14:16.909 --> 00:14:20.100 it's a guttural cry for help it's haunting It 00:14:20.100 --> 00:14:22.360 is the exact opposite of a teary, hello, how 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:24.360 are you today? It's a pure survival mechanism. 00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:26.659 It's really interesting to see how these literary 00:14:26.659 --> 00:14:29.600 giants use the word as a tool for action. You 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:31.940 know, hunting, sailing, shouting, rather than 00:14:31.940 --> 00:14:34.539 just casual conversation. It really drives home 00:14:34.539 --> 00:14:37.700 the point that this word has energy. It's kinetic. 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:39.840 And we shouldn't ignore the global connection 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:42.779 here either. The Germanic languages have a very 00:14:42.779 --> 00:14:45.820 similar lineage. In German, Danish, and Dutch, 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:49.059 hello translates directly to hello. Is it just 00:14:49.059 --> 00:14:51.100 a direct translation or is the actual history 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:53.159 similar? The history is very similar. In Dutch, 00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:56.299 for example, we found a letter from 1797 where 00:14:56.299 --> 00:14:58.919 hello is used as an expression of astonishment. 00:14:59.379 --> 00:15:02.480 So across this whole family of languages, you 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.259 have this basic sound, this H -L -O structure. 00:15:05.879 --> 00:15:08.159 being used to mark surprise or to grab attention. 00:15:08.419 --> 00:15:10.779 It really emphasizes that Edison didn't invent 00:15:10.779 --> 00:15:13.320 the sound out of thin air. He just repurposed 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:15.759 it. He took a word that meant, hey, look at me, 00:15:15.879 --> 00:15:18.220 or stop what you're doing, and turned it into, 00:15:18.360 --> 00:15:20.840 I am here on the line. He operationalized it. 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:23.120 That is the key takeaway from all these sources 00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:25.279 for me. If we look at the big picture, hello 00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:27.860 is a perfect example of adaptive reuse in language. 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:30.580 It's like turning a sword into a plowshare, but 00:15:30.580 --> 00:15:34.220 linguistically. Precisely. It started as a functional 00:15:34.220 --> 00:15:37.139 shout to stop horses or to hail fairies. It was 00:15:37.139 --> 00:15:40.600 rough. It was loud. Then the telephone arrives. 00:15:40.899 --> 00:15:43.620 It creates a brand new social problem, which 00:15:43.620 --> 00:15:46.440 is blindness in communication. Edison sees that 00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:49.620 this loud, rough word is the perfect technical 00:15:49.620 --> 00:15:53.080 solution to that exact problem. And because the 00:15:53.080 --> 00:15:55.480 text scaled, the word scaled with it. And it 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:58.179 softened. Yeah. Over the last 150 years, Hullo 00:15:58.179 --> 00:16:01.019 slowly lost its aggressive edge. It stopped being 00:16:01.019 --> 00:16:03.480 a shout and became a welcome. It became the most 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:06.279 neutral, safe way to acknowledge another human 00:16:06.279 --> 00:16:08.840 being on the planet. It's actually a pretty beautiful 00:16:08.840 --> 00:16:11.200 evolution. It's amazing to think that we completely 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:13.700 changed how we speak because of a physical device 00:16:13.700 --> 00:16:15.980 invented in the 19th century. We like to think 00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:18.139 language is this organic thing that just flows 00:16:18.139 --> 00:16:20.419 from our souls, but sometimes it's just determined 00:16:20.419 --> 00:16:23.019 by the hardware we are using. We speak the way 00:16:23.019 --> 00:16:25.419 our machines require us to speak. Absolutely. 00:16:25.620 --> 00:16:27.879 The medium dictates the message, or at least 00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:29.840 the greeting. The physical constraints of the 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:31.960 early telephone, the static on the line, the 00:16:31.960 --> 00:16:34.279 lack of a bell shaped, the first word of our 00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:37.049 conversations for an entire century. So as we 00:16:37.049 --> 00:16:39.169 wrap up this deep dive today, I just keep going 00:16:39.169 --> 00:16:41.389 back to that image of Alexander Graham Bell. 00:16:41.529 --> 00:16:44.269 The man invented the telephone. He changed the 00:16:44.269 --> 00:16:47.830 world. But he couldn't get us to say ahoy. It's 00:16:47.830 --> 00:16:49.870 a great reminder that being the inventor doesn't 00:16:49.870 --> 00:16:52.610 mean you actually control the culture. Edison 00:16:52.610 --> 00:16:55.909 understood the user experience. Even if his motivation 00:16:55.909 --> 00:16:58.629 was just saving money on a mechanical bell, much 00:16:58.629 --> 00:17:01.509 better than Bell did. Hello was easier. It worked 00:17:01.509 --> 00:17:04.559 better. It solved the problem. So here is a thought 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:06.420 for you to chew on as you go about your day. 00:17:06.619 --> 00:17:09.160 Next time your phone rings or you jump on a Zoom 00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:12.319 call and you instinctively say hello, remember 00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:14.759 that you are effectively shouting at a ferryman 00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:17.259 to come pick you up across a foggy river. And 00:17:17.259 --> 00:17:19.119 remember that you are actively participating 00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:21.400 in a linguistic habit that was designed purely 00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:25.299 to save $7 in 1877. But here's the real provocative 00:17:25.299 --> 00:17:27.119 question I want to leave you with. We've been 00:17:27.119 --> 00:17:28.859 talking this whole time about how the telephone 00:17:28.859 --> 00:17:31.099 brought back an old command word to solve a tech 00:17:31.099 --> 00:17:33.319 problem. Look at what's happening right now with 00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:35.539 AI. How do you wake up your digital assistant? 00:17:35.859 --> 00:17:40.180 You say, hey, Siri, or Alexa. Exactly. Hey, Alexa. 00:17:40.759 --> 00:17:43.519 We aren't greeting them nicely. We are commanding 00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:46.000 them. We are right back on the riverbank shouting 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:50.140 at the ferryman, hey, do this. That is a fascinating 00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:52.740 parallel. We stripped the politeness right back 00:17:52.740 --> 00:17:54.259 out of it because we were talking to machines 00:17:54.259 --> 00:17:56.339 again. If Alexander Graham Bell had been just 00:17:56.339 --> 00:17:58.700 a little bit more persuasive, maybe we'd be saying 00:17:58.700 --> 00:18:01.299 ahoy Siri today. But we aren't. We are still 00:18:01.299 --> 00:18:03.940 stuck in that loop of shouting to get attention. 00:18:04.460 --> 00:18:07.579 So what technology is being invented right now 00:18:07.579 --> 00:18:10.359 that will change the words we use 10 years from 00:18:10.359 --> 00:18:13.019 now? That is the question. The dictionary is 00:18:13.019 --> 00:18:15.039 always being rewritten by the devices in our 00:18:15.039 --> 00:18:16.839 pockets. Definitely something to think about. 00:18:16.980 --> 00:18:18.940 Thanks for listening to this deep dive into the 00:18:18.940 --> 00:18:22.640 surprising history of hello. Goodbye. Or as Bell 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:23.720 would say, ahoy.