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Rated: E · Book · Educational · #2105953

One hundred facts that are interesting but ultimately useless.

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#902480 added January 17, 2017 at 5:09pm
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"Hello" & "Goodbye"
"Hello" & "Goodbye"
- etymology -

​​The word "hello" is thought to derive from an Old Saxon/High German word "halon" ("to fetch" or "to hail"), which itself may come from the Old French word "holà" (roughly "whoa there").

The widespread use of "hello" to answer a telephone is occasionally attributed to the device's inventor, Alexander Graham Bell; a popular story recounts how one of the first ever phonecalls was made to the inventor's girlfriend, Margaret Hello. However, since Graham Bell was engaged to a Mabel Hubbard at the time, this is little more than a myth. The actual association of telephones and hello is credited to Thomas Edison.

"Goodbye" is simply a contraction of a variation on the phrase "God be with you".


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