"Hello" versus "This the Butler speakin'; Madam is indisposed, would you like to speak with Master 'enery Madam ?".

Now Press
1: for the butler
2: for Master Henery
3: Her Ladyship
4: kids only

QI also covered this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xXSw07zrio

I see the old Alo cards used for public phones in Jordan are now a collectors' item.

According to a widespread urban legend, the telephone answering word comes from Hungarian “Hallom” (pronounced like English “Hullo”) which means “I hear it”, and was introduced by Tivadar Puskás, the collaborator of Edison and inventor of phone exchange. You can read the story in the Wikipedia article on Puskás.

Fascinating ! Having now browsed Omniglot's Hello in many languages, I am haunted by visions of a bilingual Choctaw/English speaker greeting his sister : "Halito, Sis !".

Read will have to confirm for me, but Omniglot's missing "telephone hello" for Mongolian should surely be Байна уу.

It's said that Alexander Graham Bell liked to use "Ahoy".

When I was studying Mongolian, I was told that the following is a common greeting:

"What's new?"
"Nothing much."

Which is actually common enough around here. The textbook went on to say that the dialogue continue as follows:

"What's new?
"Nothing much. My mother died".

IE it's like English "How or you?" or Chinese "Have you eaten", in that it's not a real question hoping for a real answer.

Alas , my Mongolian studies never got very far.

The great Leslie Phillips, British comedy actor of the 1960s, made a living from saying "ha-llooooo!" to attractive young ladies in a way that implied much more than Thomas Edison would have thought possible you could ever get into the word - Phillips actually called his autobiography Hello!, and you can hear him saying it here.

Stephen Fry recently did a whole radio programme on the history of hello (part of his language series 'English Delight' on Radio 4 - BBC).
Bell beat Edison to patent the telephone only by a couple of weeks. When it came to marketing Edison beat Bell. Bell's telephone exchange ladies were trained to greet callers 'Ahoy', Edison's girls were to say 'Hello'. In France it sounds like 'ah-lyo' which was exported into Russian and is still used in this softer form more frequently than the hard 'ah-loh'.

Fry traces hello to the English hunting cry tally-ho. And another gem: British policemen were trained to say 'Hello, hello, hello - what's going on here?' in a confident and authoritative way to break up street disturbances, a fight outside a pub for example. And it worked, no guns, batons or tazers.

Fry also said that alternative spelling 'hallo' developed because religious people were loath to use a word which included 'hell'. Is that plausible?

Fry traces hello to the English hunting cry tally-ho.

I love Stephen Fry like a brother, but you really don't want to use him as a source for etymology. (Or, come to that, my brothers.)

Sashura: In France it sounds like 'ah-lyo'

Absolutely not. This must be how the Russians first interpreted the French allô (pronounced simply [a-lo]), since there is no [ly] in French (I mean the Russian "soft" or palatalized l).

Yes, B, when on the phone you say - bain uu? which means are you there
JE, that's what's news? - sonin yu baina? or sonin saikhan? (anything interesting, fine/beautiful?)
The reply is, yes, usually nothing much - yumgui dee
but the textbook is stupid with the example, anything else, but about one's mother's death one wouldn't tell that casually
most probably one wouldn't tell at all an important news just after greeting, if ever would even tell

baina uu

come to think of it, sain uu/sain bna uu should be said before asking what's new/news anyway
otherwise it wouldn't sound a normal greeting
if formal greeting then, Amar baina uu?/Amar mend uu?(Were you peaceful/ safe?) apply, those greetings are used during the traditional new year celebrations, for example
greetings at that time could be very long and elaborate, sometimes humorous, and involving all the household, with herds etc
like in Targan tavtai övöljij baina uu? (but this also goes after asking Amar baina uu, means do you and your herd spend the winter fat and comfy and there are many variations of this)

It's your dime - start talking.

Cormac McCarthy has his Southerners and Westerners frequently say "Hidy" (pronounced 'high dee'), which is indeed a greeting you hear in the South (I dont hate it. I dont.) and the Southwest. To me, "hidy" always sounds somehow more welcoming and less like a 'pitch' introduction than "hello", though I don't say it myself. In McCarthy's fiction, hidy can have a, ah, dubious quality . . .

not were you, but have you been ka naa

Could hidy be a version of howdy?

Traditionally, in Punjabi you need to know the religion of the person being addressed to select the appropriate greeting from ਸਤਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਅਕਾਲ sat srī akāl, ਅੱਸਲਾਮ ਅਲੈਕਮ / السلام علیک asslām alaikam or ਨਮਸਤੇ namastē, which makes ਹੈਲੋ (hello) a fallback or catch-all.

I dont hate it. I dont.

I do love a good Faulkner quote aptly used.

Speaking Stephen Fry.

I believe Montegomery Burns from The Simpsons is supposed to answer the phone with Bell's original greeting "ahoy 'hoy".

Somewhere on the 'net some years ago I saw a short article claiming you should always start a phone conversation with "hello", because those two syllables are enough for a stranger to adjust to the standard frequency of your voice. If you venture directly into your message, the first bit will be lost, and your interlocutor will inevitably ask you to repeat what you just said.

I was brought up to answer the phone with my family name, and I haven't been able to get rid of that habit. Most strangers then ask "Is this Jens?". Many people seem to use (or used to use) their number - but I've never been able to catch that, myself, so I had to ask "Is this <name>?"

On the other hand, when I do phone someone I almost invariably say "Ja, goddag. Mit navn er Jens <last name> by way of introduction once there's an answer. I do not know why I add that "yes", but I do.

*speaking of

I have often found the Russian "Slushaiu Vas!" to be peremptory and off-putting. Was this form an effort to avoid the westernized "allo"? Was it used more in official communications? Is it still used?
The most vivid example of Russian telephone etiquette that comes quickly to mind is that in the 70s film "Sluzhebnyi roman" ("Office Romance"), in which you get to hear how the super-businesslike agency head, the officious and ambitious deputy head, the work-averse receptionist, and the underlings all answer the phone at work.

And now -- ciao!

In France, people say allô when first speaking on the phone (answering the phone itself, or the person at the other end), but when I was small (and not everyone had a phone), my father always answered the phone with allô, j'écoute "hello, I'm listening".

That is, in terms of the urban legend, he first told it in Hungarian borrowed from Edison’s America, and then immediately translated it to French…

I have often found the Russian "Slushaiu Vas!"…

That is still true for provincial Russia. Or even a simple Dobryj ďeň, … (where … stands for the name of the speaker.)

Could hidy be a version of howdy?

Cab Calloway's "hidy, hidy, hidy ho."

What about "goodbye" on the telephone? I have heard that in Mexico they say "okay bye" or "bueno bye". In Jordan it's "yalla bye."

marie-lucie, I'm pretty sure 'hidy' is a drawled version of 'howdy' ('how do you do, guv'ner?'), speaking (the latter compression) which one would be smiling and so not make the ring with one's lips: a - oo ("ow"). Maybe, the farther south of the Ohio river you go, pronounced more like 'hah dee' than 'high dee'. Maybe, the farther west of the Mississippi you travel, you hear the rounded 'how - dee', but I don't remember hearing a full 'hOW - dee do' too often.

(And that ain't soap from no gross vendor, goober nator.)

I've heard "okay bye" at the end of a long face-to-face conversation, seemingly between mother and daughter, in Vietnamese.

goodbye on the phone in my language would be just regular bayartai (literally it means, with joy)
my family and friends use a lot poka (Russian) or bye

deadgod, a Canadian friend of mine who has always lived in BC invariably uses howdy (never hidy or anything in between) as a greeting whenever I meet him. I don't know too many other people who do that regularly, but I have known the word for ages. I don't think I have ever heard hidy, but I am not terribly familiar with Southern American accents.

I know a German man in Hamburg who always uses "Ahoy!" as a greeting (in person). I've never found out why.

do you and your herd spend the winter fat and comfy
I think I'll adopt that for the winter - it's lovely.

It's all explained by Jeeves in "Minnie The Moocher".

I know a German man in Hamburg who always uses "Ahoy!" as a greeting (in person). I've never found out why.

Maybe he's a sailor. Or maybe he's Czech.

In Poland, słucham is a common way to answer the phone and means 'I'm listening'. 'Halo' is also used, but sounds a little abrupt to me, maybe not to native speakers, as it's other use is to get the attention of someone whose back is to you in public.

At the link, the Spanish phone greetings need work as they differ by country. As I recall, diga is used in Spain and Bueno in Mexico, but I don't recall the distribution of others.

Now that I'm here, Poles often end phone calls with a flurry of several different short expressions, any one of which should be enough, but the habit is to use several.

"Na razie, cześć, hej, pa!" is pretty typical.

Hello is actually "L.O.", from "Lincoln's 'orrible", the slogan of the Douglas campaign in the 1860 election.

"L.O." - lol!

I have had the experience of phoning an Israeli company, to have the receptionist answer the phone with "What do you want?" which is, at least, efficient.

Traditionally, in Punjabi you need to know the religion of the person being addressed to select the appropriate greeting from ਸਤਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਅਕਾਲ sat srī akāl, ਅੱਸਲਾਮ ਅਲੈਕਮ / السلام علیک asslām alaikam or ਨਮਸਤੇ namastē, which makes ਹੈਲੋ (hello) a fallback or catch-all.

Interesting that you make this point regarding Panjabi. It is also true, of course, of Hindi/Urdu. However, while I have never met any Sikh or Muslim Panjabi who was offended by ਨਮਸਤੇ, or ਨਮਸਕਾਰ (which I always default to when uncertain of the person's religious background), I do know at least one Hindu Panjabi who dislikes ਸਤਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਅਕਾਲ enough to correct gora visitors who try it, a rare departure from Indic treatment of guests.

I have often found the Russian "Slushaiu Vas!" to be peremptory and off-putting

It's supposed to be. It's mostly used by officials. I've never met a Russian who answers their home phone that way. You can soften it a bit by saying "Slushaiu Vas vnimatel'no" - I'm listening attentively.

Does anyone know where the Italian "Pronto" comes from?
In the Netherlands, most people in formal environments say "Goedemorgen/Goedemiddag, Morielje & Fléau Booksellers,met Firstname Lastname" ; but most halfway-thirty-and-younger people I know say "Hallo met First Name" at home.

"Pool hall; 8-ball speaking."

No, no. It's "Pool hall, Pool ain't here, 8-ball speaking."