World Hello Day
Today is World Hello Day.
How many times each day do you say the word ‘Hello’? Ten, twenty, fifty? Whatever the answer to that question, very few of us could probably explain where the word comes from. Its origins are quite diverse: the Oxford English Dictionary suggests it’s an alteration of older words like ‘hallo’, which can be traced back to an Old High German word meaning ‘to fetch,’ which was often used to hail a ferryman on a boat, as well as the French word ‘holà’ roughly meaning ‘whoa there!’. Early spellings, such as ‘hullo,’ were used as a call to attention or to express surprise, and the word ‘hollo’ is used by Shakespeare as a shout.
However, the real turning point for the word ‘hello’ was the invention of the telephone in the late 19th Century. Before this, greetings were often time-specific, like ‘good morning’, but with telephones connecting people across different time zones, a more general greeting was needed. Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, initially tried using the nautical term ‘ahoy ahoy’ , but it was Thomas Edison who is credited with popularising ‘hello’ as the standard telephone greeting. In 1877, he famously suggested that ‘Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away’ and the idea stuck. By 1889, central telephone exchange operators became widely known as the ‘hello-girls’ due to their consistent use of the greeting.
World Hello Day was founded in 1973 by two brothers, Brian and Michael McCormack, in response to the Yom Kippur War between Israel and several Arab states, including Egypt and Syria. Gathering all the money they had at the time, the two young brothers wrote and posted 1,360 letters in seven different languages and sent them to government leaders and influential figures to promote the resolution of conflict by talking rather than fighting. Since 1973, the brothers have persuaded 31 Nobel Peace Prize winners to get behind World Hello Day, and copies of supporting letters can be found on their website from Queen Elizabeth II, US Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, the Dalai Lama, and Pope John Paul II, among others.
World Hello Day began with one important objective – to promote peace in our world through emphasising the importance of dialogue rather than fighting – but since 1973, it has also broadened in scope. It is often said that in a world where we are more connected than ever before, there are also record numbers of people who feel lonely or isolated. In most towns and cities nowadays, you can find a ‘chatty bench’ with a sign that invites people who sit there to talk to each other. Just a simple ‘hello’ can brighten someone’s day, and perhaps we can all use World Hello Day on Friday to remind us of this fact and, of course, that it costs us nothing to greet others with a smile and a simple ‘hello’.
If you’d like to read some of the letters written by or on behalf of famous contributors, or learn more about World Hello Day, you can do so here.
Have a great weekend
Best wishes
Michael Bond
