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.

Does it (/ did it originally) actually carry such respect from a Japanese perspective? To me, it seems like a pragmatic solution to cope with bad telephone lines more than anything.

Interesting. In Australia, people often use erhm or aah/aahm as an interjection to announce that they are about to commence speaking.