evidence: Hello is first recorded in the early 1800s, but was originally used to attract attention or express surprise ("Well, hello! What do we have here?"). But the true breakthrough for this now-common word was when it was employed in the service of brand-new technology: the telephone. Thomas Edison himself claimed to have initiated the use of hello upon receiving a phone call—which required people to address an unseen and unknown person. It was simpler and more efficient than some other greetings used in the early days of the telephone, such as "Do I get you?" and "Are you there?" Hello obviously caught on, and spread along with the telephone. But had the actual inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, had his way, our greetings might be very different today. For his entire life, he preferred to answer the phone with "Ahoy."