Hello again, one last time

A survey8230; has found that telephone manners are dying as a third of 18-24-year-olds no longer answer calls with 8220;hello8221;. To the Mail this is a terrible sad state of affairs.

But it8217;s not as if the yoof are instead saying, 8220;Whaddyawant?8221; or 8220;I hope you and those you love die soon8221; 8230; they8217;re saying 8220;Hi8221; or 8220;Yo8221;. Hardly a devastating loss of manners. We should be glad that the texting generation answer the phone at all, and use vowels when they do.

And there was a time when 8220;Hello8221; would have been a new and shocking piece of slang. It8217;s little more than a century and a half old 8212; coined by Thomas Edison or Mark Twain or Lionel Richie, probably. Mail readers of the time must have been apoplectic. The first telephone was answered with 8220;Ahoy hoy8221;, and I see no reason why we shouldn8217;t go back to that8230; My dad still answers the phone with its number, though that takes longer now: when he first picked up a receiver, I believe he said: 8220;Six8221;. My mother answers with her name. I use 8220;hello8221;, but will readily change in order to keep up with the times8230;

Will 8220;Hello8221; soon join other 20th century anachronisms like the quiff, communism and fruit juice as a starter? Kingsville, Texas, has already rejected 8220;Hello8221; as its official greeting, on the grounds that it starts with 8220;Hell8221;, turning instead to 8220;Heaven-o8221;. Absolutely true. I read it on Wikipedia. So, possibly not true. But I do like the idea of reintroducing a religious basis to our greetings, while keeping the jolly 8220;o8221; ending. 8220;Valhalla-o8221; for your remaining Vikings; Buddhists can have 8220;Coming back as a cockroach or an eagle depending on how you did-o8221;; 8220;oblivion-o8221; sounds cheery for atheists; I and my fellow agnostics might go with 8220;dunno-o8221;.Cheerie-bye and farewell for now.

Excerpted from a comment by Carrie Quinlan in 8216;The Guardian8217;