Something Rhymes with Purple cover image

Etiquette

Something Rhymes with Purple

00:00

What Is the Oldest of These?

Hey and ho are first recorded in the 13th century. High is already there in the 1400s, so that's some 400 years before hello came on the scene. And amongst Anglo-Saxon, the very familiar greeting was hail - meaning whole or healthy. Then as I say, around the 1800s, hello emerged. Can you guess what really secured its fame? Alexander Graham Bell preferred a hoy there. But Thomas Edison shouted hello into the mouthpiece of his device when he discovered a wave recording sound. So that was in 1877. First telephone operators were called hello girls.

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