Hello or Ahoy?
"Halloo!"
"Hello" and Edison
By Doug Boilesen 2020 (with special
thanks to Allen Koenigsberg)
The telephone and the invention of the phonograph
have a very close relationship (See PBS American Experience's
Edison:
From the Telephone and the Telegraph Comes the Phonograph).
But how does answering a phone with "hello"
have anything to do with the Phonograph?
It turns out that Edison shouted "Halloo!"
in the process of discovering the principle of recorded sound
in July 1877 and a month later (August 15, 1877), when telephones
were getting ready to be introduced into Pittsburgh, Edison suggested
using "Hello" to let the other party on the telephone line
know that someone was ready to speak.
Here are the details discovered by my favorite
phonograph sleuth Allen Koenigsberg who investigated the origin of
'hello." Allen first published his findings in his Antique
Phonograph Monthly Issue
No. 76 in 1987 and also included a copy of the letter he discovered,
never before published, which documents Edison's suggestion to "Friend
David."
"I do not think we need a call bell as "Hello!
can be heard 10 to 20 feet way. What do you think?" Edison
Courtesy of APM
and AT&T Historical Archives
The following is an extract from the New
York Times March 5,1992 about Koenigsberg's discovery in an
article by William Grimes titled "The Great 'Hello' Mystery is
Solved."
Resolved to sort out the "hello" mystery,
Mr. Koenigsberg embarked on a tortuous search five years ago that
led him, finally and triumphantly, to the American Telephone and
Telegraph Company Archives in lower Manhattan, where he found an
unpublished letter by Edison. Dated Aug. 15, 1877, it is addressed
to one T.B.A. David, president of the Central District and Printing
Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh. Mr. David was preparing to introduce
the telephone to that city.
At the time, Edison envisioned the telephone
as a business device only, with a permanently open line to parties
at either end. This setup raised a problem: How would anyone know
that the other party wanted to speak? Edison addressed the issue
as follows: Friend David, I don't think we shall need a call bell
as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What do you think? EDISON
It was a word of destiny. Over at the laboratories
of Edison's rival, Bell was insisting on "Ahoy!" as the correct
way to answer the telephone. It was trounced by "hello," which became
the standard as the first telephone exchanges, equipped by Edison,
were set up across the United States and operating manuals adopted
the word. The first public exchange, opened in New Haven on Jan.
28, 1878, wavered between "hello" and the fusty "What is wanted?"
in its manual. By 1880, "hello" had won out.
Postcard 1909
"Hello! Are
you there?" Postcard 1911
Mr. Koenigsberg's research "enters
the area of educated guesswork when it comes to settling the question
of why Edison used "hello" in the first place."
When Edison discovered the principle of recorded
sound on July 18, 1877, he shouted "Halloo!" into the mouthpiece
of the strip phonograph. The word was the traditional call to incite
hounds to the chase, and is a close relative of such words as hilla,
hillo, halloa and hallo, all used to hail from a distance.
The British "hullo," which dates from the
mid-19th century, is deceptive. It was used not as a greeting but
as an expression of surprise, as in "Hullo, what have we here?"
It seems likely that Edison, satisfied with
the resonant halloo, continued to use it in his experiments, at
some point compressing the pronunciation and modifying the spelling,
never his strong suit, in any case.
Mr. Koenigsberg said he would still like
to know what exactly was going through Edison's mind at the moment
of creation. For satisfaction, he will have to turn to one of the
first songs to use the Edisonian greeting, "Hello, Central. Give
Me Heaven."
Hello Central
Give Me Heaven, Chas. K. Harris, New
York 1901
Courtesy Lester
S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins
In a 2021 correspondence, Mr. Koenigsberg provided
more history and thoughts about "Hello" and Edison with
bottom line still that Bell's fight for
"Ahoy" was a losing battle, with "Hello" the victor
in the USA.(3)
Despite the clear Edison 'hello" triumph,
however, I think Bell's 'Ahoy' as a telephone greeting should still
be remembered. And it did get a new lease on life when Mr. Burns of
The Simpsons started answering his phone "Ahoy-hoy."
My suggestion? Answer the phone "Ahoy"
or "Ahoy-hoy" from time to time. And at the very least,
use an "Ahoy" each March 3 on Alexander Graham Bell's birthday.
It can add an educational moment to your call.
"Ahoy-hoy"
What about ending a call? "That
is all!"
Ammon Shea's book "The Phone Book: The
Curious History of the Book That Everybody Uses But No One Reads"
informs us that the first phonebook's recommended Way To End A
Phone Conversation was "That is all." (1)
"Says Ammon Shea: This strikes me as an
eminently more honest and forthright way to end a phone call than
"good-bye." "Good-bye," "bye-bye," and all the other variants are
ultimately contractions of the phrase "God Be with you" (or "with
ye")."
As demonstrated by Mr. Burns, "Ahoy"
can also be used to end a call (watch
the following "telephone machine" scene of The Simpson's
where Burns answers the call with an "Ahoy-hoy" and then
uses an "Ahoy" to end the call and hang up.
"Ahoy-hoy"
and "Ahoy"
| Have a nice
day! |
"Over
and out" |
Arrivederci! |
|
|
|
| Bye bye! |
Good-bye!
|
Farewell |
|
|
|
|
That's all folks!
(Looney Tunes)
|
|
"And that's
the way it is."
(Walter Cronkite) because
if that's all there is,
there is no more.
|
Edison on the telephone, August
31, 1914
Courtesy Edison National Historic
Site - National Park Service and Antique Phonograph Monthly
Alexander Graham Bell on the telephone,
1892
"Alexander Graham Bell at the
opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago," 1892.
Courtesy of Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
Reproduction Number LC-G9-Z2-28608-B
"Hello"
and Phone Calls seen in early postcards
"Hello Girls was first coined for female
telephone switchboard operators in the US, and was the common term
used for women who would greet callers with "hello" when they rang
the switchboard instead of dialling another telephone number directly."
Wikipedia
Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur's Court written in 1889 is an early example of using
the word 'Hello" and "hello-girl" in the context of
the telephone: "The humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles
of wire could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the
highest duchess in Arthur's land." Wikipedia
Earliest sheet
music with Telephone on cover & 'Hello' lyrics inside
Kissing Papa
through the Telephone,
The W.F. Shaw, Co., 1889
Sheet music starts with 'bell
ringing," a "Hello! hello! and then the opening
lines of the song:
Papa's gone away to be gone all
day, And he left me in my bed sleeping all alone.
Now his parting kiss, he'll be
sure to miss, So I'll send it to him thro' the Telephone...
Courtesy Lester
S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins
"Hello"
and Telephone Calls seen on sheet music covers
Telephone Calls
and Record Albums
Nancy Listen, Laugh & Learn LP
1982 (backside of album cover)
Telephone
Line, Electric Light Orchestra, 1977
The phone rings, no one answers,
but the caller nevertheless asks "Hello, How are You? Have you
been alright? That's what I'd like to say....let it ring for ever more..."
"Hello"
single released by Adele, October 23, 2015
"I
am Here."
One final suggestion for acknowledging
that you are available to talk when your phone rings would be the simple
"I am Here," inspired by the Phonograph's 1891
Phonogram periodical banner: "Can'st thou send lightnings,
That they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?"
"I
am Here."
"That is
all."
"Ahoy!" as a greeting makes
an appearance during COVID-19, April 17, 2020 (Courtesy Stephen Pastis
- Pearls Before Swine)
"I don't know why
you say goodbye, I say hello"
I don't know why you
say goodbye, I say "That is all."
Illustration
courtesy of Adam Cole, intern with NPR's Science Desk, 2011
"That's
all there is. There is no more."
That
is all.
Phonographia
Postcard 1909
Postcard by F. Earl Christy,
ca. 1910's
May 2, 1909 postcard sent to
Miss Eva Saylor, Daykin, Nebr
Postcard ca. 1915
Postcard 1909
Postmarked Milton, PA 1909
Hello! 1908
1910 Postmarked "Hello"
Girls Valentine's Day card, 1906 Raphael Tuck & Sons Co.
Hello Ma Baby,
T. B. Harms & Co., New York 1899
Courtesy Lester
S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins
Hello All right
Good-bye Mr. Witmark & Sons, New York
1905
Courtesy Lester
S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins
Hello Hawaii
How Are You Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co.,
New York 1915
Courtesy Lester
S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins
Hello Wisconsin
Kalmar, Puck and Abrahams, Consolidated, Inc., ©Canada, 1917
(Library of Congress)
Hello America Hello
McCarthy & Fisher Music Publ. (Inc), New York 1917
Courtesy Lester
S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins
Hello Central! Give
Me No Man's Land Waterson Berlin & Snyder, Co., New York City,
1918
(Courtesy Lester
S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins)
Hello Central,
Give Me Heaven Calumet Music Co., Chicago,
1937
Phonographia
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