August 15, 1877

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Joel Byers

On This Date in TWISTED-HISTORY.com in 1877 Thomas Edison wrote to the president of the Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, PA. The letter stated that the word, “hello” would be a more appropriate greeting than “ahoy” when answering the telephone. I believe we should go back to using ‘ahoy’ and dressing like a pirate to hold telephone conversations. That way it would be easier for the police to identify those people talking on their cellphones while they are driving.

[Facebook] [MySpace] [Twitter] More »

About Joel Byers

Born in North Georgia and educated at some very fine public institutions. Real education started after graduating from college and then getting married and raising two boys. Has the ability to see the funny and absurd in most things and will always remark on it, even if it means getting the stink-eye from his victims.
This entry was posted in 19th Century, Historical Facts and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to August 15, 1877

  1. Alexander Graham Bell says:
    August 15, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    Edison really pisses me off, sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong.

    I invented the damn thing, so you’d think they’d go with “Ahoy”, like I intended. But no, Mr. Ooh-Look-At-Me-I-Invented-The-Light-Bulb Edison has to go write a letter, so now everybody’s saying “Hello” instead. Ahoy had substance. Ahoy had gravitas. But Hello? Seriously? That sounds ridiculous! (just say it over and over a few hundred times and, trust me, it’ll eventually start sounding pretty silly).

    Besides, what the hell am I going to do now with all these eye patches and pirate hats?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *