Why Do We Say Hello on the Phone? Edison, Bell and Ahoy

Nova, our AI presenter, explains it in under 40 seconds. Here is the written version.

The short answer

You say hello on the phone because Thomas Edison's suggestion beat Alexander Graham Bell's. Bell, who patented the telephone, is reported to have answered calls with "ahoy", a hail borrowed from ships. Edison preferred "hello".

How it played out

• 1877: Edison wrote to the president of a Pittsburgh telegraph company that a shouted "hello" can be heard 10 to 20 feet away, so a call bell was not needed.
• Not his word: Edison did not invent "hello". A Connecticut newspaper, the Norwich Courier, printed it in 1826 as an expression of surprise.
• The 1880s: As telephones spread, English speakers settled on "hello" as the way to answer. There is no sign that "ahoy" ever caught on.

What we could not confirm

The sources we used are secondary pages that relay the letter and the 1826 newspaper. We only state what two or more of them agree on, and we leave out the exact day of Edison's letter because accounts differ.

So: hello, or ahoy?

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Hello" (telephone greeting section)
• Hagley Library, "Date 1877: inventor Thomas Edison suggested hello"
• New England Historical Society, on the etymology of hello
• Mental Floss, "Why Do We Answer the Phone with Hello?"
• ScienceABC, "Why Do We Only Ever Answer the Phone with Hello?"
• Futility Closet, "A Social Invention"
• Reader's Digest (relaying NPR) and Twilio glossary, "ahoy"
• The Business Standard (BBC report), "Hello turns 200 in print"

Nova and her voice are AI-generated. All graphics are our own.

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