A Catalogue of Useless Facts

"Hello" & "Goodbye"

"Hello" & "Goodbye"
- etymology -

​​The word "hello" is thought to derive from an Old Saxon/High German word "halon" ("to fetch" or "to hail"), which itself may come from the Old French word "holà" (roughly "whoa there").

The widespread use of "hello" to answer a telephone is occasionally attributed to the device's inventor, Alexander Graham Bell; a popular story recounts how one of the first ever phonecalls was made to the inventor's girlfriend, Margaret Hello. However, since Graham Bell was engaged to a Mabel Hubbard at the time, this is little more than a myth. The actual association of telephones and hello is credited to Thomas Edison.

"Goodbye" is simply a contraction of a variation on the phrase "God be with you".

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Sources ▼

https://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hello
https://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=good-bye
https://www.snopes.com/language/eponyms/hello.asp