evidence: It was only a matter of time before inventive spellers landed on hello, which first appeared in print in an 1826 issue of Connecticut’s Norwich Courier: "Hello, Jim! I’ll tell you what: I’ve a sharp knife and feel as if I’d like to cut up something or other." In that and other instances from the era, hello was either used to flag someone down—much like you might yell "Hey!" today—or convey surprise. It wasn’t until a few decades later that people began to utter it (and its British versions, hullo and hulloa) in greeting. By the late 19th century, the word was experiencing a boom in popularity that may never have happened without one Thomas Edison. As NPR reports, Edison is credited with encouraging hello as the go-to greeting for anyone answering a telephone call. He recommended it for callers, too. [...] The fact that hello remains the favored way to start a phone conversation would likely rankle Alexander Graham Bell if he were still alive today: He wanted people to answer the telephone with "Ahoy."