Back in the 80's, I'd call my best friend and when his Dad would answer, he would say, "yello". Is this a North Eastern thing? His family was from Pennsylvania.

One advantage of using hello as a greeting is that it is agnostic of social rank. This made it the perfect choice for greeting people of unknown social rank on the phone.

Having traveled the world quite a bit I can attest to the ubiquity of the word hello… almost everywhere I go it is understood. ‘OK’ has a similar ubiquity, and it is interesting that both words are relatively new additions to the English (universal?) language.

> Greek, meanwhile, uses "Γειά σου" (pronounced "yah-soo") as a typical informal greeting, offering a wish for health rather than a simple salutation.

Ironically, the root of "salutation" in latin is "salutare," to wish good health.

> According to linguists, elongated variations such as "heyyy" could be construed as flirtatious, "hellaw" might suggest you're from the southern US, "howdy" from western US, and the clipped "hi" may indicate a curt disposition.

Surely "howdy" derives from "how do you do?" and not "hello."

What's the origin of "Hello World"?

It feels as if "hello" is fading out again. It was never completely universal. Where I grew up, people still say "aye aye" (not on a ship btw), along with the usual "good whatever".

I did once read a Christian complaining about it because it had the word "Hell" in it. A minority opinion of course.

The article should have mentioned the Japanese phone greeting of Moshi Moshi. Which I think means I’m going to speak now. Which I think has a wonderful respect for stillness or quiet.

Interesting read. How we got the word “goodbye” is also a cool story.