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Why do we say hello when we answer the telephone?

Why do we say hello when we answer the telephone and goodbye/bye bye/bye/ see ya/cheerio/see you later etc, when were ending the call
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Guest12102371
Guest12102371
1 month, 1 day(s) ago

Agreed it's polite and lets the other person know we are here and the conversation can begin,
and goodbye is just a polite way of saying conversation is over and you can hang up. :)


Guest2248868
Guest2248868
6 months, 27 day(s) ago

what can be said apart from hello


Guest5010
Guest5010
earlier

I answer it 'good bye'--makes things much more interesting;-)


Guest2648
Guest2648
earlier

I believe it is to notify the other person that you have picked up the phone, to let them know you are there and ready to start your conversation. and the goodbye is saying that you are finished with your conversation


Guest6261
Guest6261
earlier

coz den the person knows their sum1 on the other side and is actually listenign DAH!!!!


Guest974
Guest974
earlier

Good maners.


Guest5354
Guest5354
earlier

because it's polite?



i once answered with "what!!?" (i was having a bad day) and it was a woman calling about a job interview.. needless to say i didnt get the job. hence why i always answer politely these days


Guest6858
Guest6858
earlier

when your phone is ringing and you pick it up you will say hello as its a way of greeting whoever is on the other end. its polite aswell.


Guest3296
Guest3296
earlier

To be polite


Guest9292
Guest9292
earlier

I say hello because it's polite and curtious. It's also the obvious thing you say to anyone you meet or greet.


Guest8898
Guest8898
earlier

BECAUSE those words are appropriate to use while on phone.



We say hello, it's like saying 'yes, who is it'.



We can't say 'what'? that wouldn't be polite or we can't say 'candy' etc. cuz that would just make no sense at all.



We say goodbye/bye bye/bye/see ya/cheerio/see ya later etc. cuz the other person on the phone will know when the call is going to end.



You can't just hang up that would be weird and rude plus what if the person wanted to say something but you just hung up?



LOL so we say bye to end the call.


Guest1280
Guest1280
earlier

it's a polite way to say



yes i'm here



and now the call ends.



otherwise, will the other person know when the call starts or ends. next time try picking up the phone and say nothing. and when your done say nothing. or yell out random words when you pick up the phone. :)



if you want to know the history of hello go to the link below


Guest2136
Guest2136
earlier

Its a key word to let the other person the the end you have to go.


Guest8167
Guest8167
earlier

The use of Hello for answering the telephone is credited to Thomas Edison. Bell first used the words used by the navy, "Ahoy-hoy", In 1889 the telephone operators were known as "Hello-girls". This is only the use of the word for the telephone. The word "hello" has been used in print as early as the 1860's which predates the telephone. It may derive from an earlier form Hullo used in print as early as 1838 by Charles Dickens, and in common usage in most English speaking countries.


Guest1333
Guest1333
earlier

to alert the person you answered and to b nice


Guest531
Guest531
earlier

It's manners.. the same as saying please and thanks.


Guest1782
Guest1782
earlier

The word hello was invented specifically to use on the telephone, it was between that and "Ahoy" and hello won.


Guest654
Guest654
earlier

I dunno.



God or whoever you believe in must have thought certain words are said at certain times.



Like whys...well..em...anything called whatever it's called??



LOL!! I have no idea!!



XXX, Peace out, Rolo.


Guest9462
Guest9462
earlier

Philip H just hangs up on me....


Guest3416
Guest3416
earlier

Because it's polite.


Guest3633
Guest3633
earlier

It's all to do with Thomas Edison; the first written use of the word "hello" was in a letter of his in 1887, in which he suggested that it should be used to answer the telephone as the word could be heard distinctly twenty feet away. He discovered this whilst testing Bell's prototype telephone, and used to shout it into the receivers at the Menlo Park Labs whilst trying to improve Bell's design. Bell himself preferred to say "Ahoy,hoy".



Edison's habit eventually spread to the rest of the research staff and then to telephone exchanges, where before the operators would normally say "Operator-are you ready to talk, caller?" or a variation thereof.


Guest9600
Guest9600
earlier

it is a means of introduction to an open line of communication. You could replace it with any other word such as 'yes?' or 'what?', seeming as in the context of most phone calls without caller ID, the purpose of the hello is more phrased as a question than a response. With cellphones that shows who is calling it would be like any other conversation where you know who you are talking to, in which case you might then ask, why do we say hello when we meet after a long period of absense from one anothers immediate proximity. The answer is simply that it is the socially acceptable means of greeting other people, and if you don't know why people greet, then I wouldn't be surprised if in fact you just flew in from Mars or Venus...


Guest6665
Guest6665
earlier

To greet someone who has just rang us and to then end a call..duh..lol


Guest5578
Guest5578
earlier

It has been suggested that "hello" is a corruption of a word used by the hunting (with hounds) fraternity, but I'm sorry I can't remember what it was.



Goodbye is supposed to be a mutation of "God be with you."


Guest2449
Guest2449
earlier

thats a good question i guess to be piolt as its like asking why do we say hi when we see someone n bye when we leave them


Guest5928
Guest5928
earlier

It's just etiquette. If I call someone and they answer the phone, "yeah?" I think it's rude.


Guest471
Guest471
earlier

politeness.


Guest7849
Guest7849
earlier

if we didnt it would be confusing



if u rang someone and they didnt say anything u would think they werent there



and u say goodbye to let the person no ur going


Guest8664
Guest8664
earlier

What? Hallo? Ive never heard that before...lol



I always answer the phone with 'BYE'


Guest5994
Guest5994
earlier

I haven't got it here, but Bill Bryson talks in one of his books about the confusion when phones were first invented... Some people thought you should answer with your full address, some people thought you should just say "Yes?"



"Hello" won out, as it was the best all-round conversation starter.



Heh - when I was a kid, my folks taught me to always answer with our phone number. These days, I just say "yee-ello?"


Guest1952
Guest1952
earlier

Probably because it sounds better than "YAH?"...although I have had fun with answering "is Ann there?" when my friends call me. They don't expect anything out of the ordinary like that!


Guest6627
Guest6627
earlier

politeness


Guest8120
Guest8120
earlier

lol...what else would you say...pick up the phone & say nothing? ...funny! oh & goodbye to end the conversation so that the other person knows...& not just putting the phone down!


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