We have a quiz show here (one of those where the B-list celebrity panelists get paid to enjoy themselves and try to be funny and sometimes manage to make the audience laugh) called QI.

The premise is that the questions all have unexpected answers and the panelists don't get points for being right they get points for being interesting and lose points for obvious (but wrong) answers.

Tonight the show claimed that our old pal Edison invented the word "Hello" and was the first to use it in print. The previous form "Hullo" had been common for a long time but only as an expression of surprise as in "Hullo, what's this, then?"

Anyone know if this is actually true?

I know nothing about that quiz show, Bob, but during my travels on the USA Mainland last year (I don't have TV at home) I witnessed a quiz show with the following memorable discourse:

Quiz Master: Shakespeare wrote a play named "The Tempest." What is a tempest?

Teenage contestant: "A tempest is ..... like .... a Buddhist Monk?"

Bob, this sounds like a good question to pose over on Wordorigins. Since I can't make links for some reason, you'll have to go there the hard way!

Now, as for "Tempest," everybody knows it's an old Pontiac in a tea pot!

Bah! I was going to make the same post as you, Bob! I was also dubious about the claim made that Alexander Graham Bell wanted everyone to use "Ahoy" when answering the phone. The Word Detective confirms the latter statement, but not the former.

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Folks in Chaucer's time greeted each other with "hallow," which may have come from the Old French "hola," meaning essentially "stop!" or "whoa!" By the time the telephone came along, Americans were saying "hullo" to each other every day, so it was a short jump to "hello."

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Tonight the show claimed that our old pal Edison invented the word "Hello" and was the first to use it in print.

I do hope our old pal Richard didn't watch that show.

It sounds like the show is wrong. I saw a quiz show tonight about words, too. It really was quite pitiful though because the contestants were terribly stupid. They thought the word "angina" was "vagina;" "shuttlecock" was you know what; no idea what a "uvula" was (though the guesses were lewd); and they thought "epidermis" was what you might guess. Now, they also didn't know the name of the Vice President (this was a repeat show), so you can imagine their intelligence. Oh, and the kicker? A man guessed his 40-something mother-in-law was 10 decades old!

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I was also dubious about the claim made that Alexander Graham Bell wanted everyone to use "Ahoy" when answering the phone.

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One of the little running jokes in The Simpsons is that Mr. Burns answers the telephone with 'Ahoy ahoy!'

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Mr. Burns answers the telephone with 'Ahoy ahoy!'

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That's right. They mentioned that on the show.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
We have a quiz show here (one of those where the B-list celebrity panelists get paid to enjoy themselves and try to be funny and sometimes manage to make the audience laugh) called QI.

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Bob, really! I would not call the likes of Alan Davies and Bill Bailey B-listers by any stretch of the imagination, and the same goes for most of the panellists on that show (although I appreciate that B-list is a subjective term) - they always manage to make me laugh. And as for Stephen Fry, well - I know he's the host so technically not included in your 'panellist' grouping, but... well... those of you who know me personally will know I'm not easily star-struck, but were I to meet the man, I think I would surely faint. If it's possible to have a cerebral crush on someone, then that's what I have on him. Since Blackadder, no less.

(OMG, do I really remember things from over 20 years ago? I need a lie down!)

Oh yes - if the Alexander Graham Bell "Ahoy" thing really isn't true, then why does Mr Burns answer the phone like that - what's the joke?

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Originally posted by Cat:

Bob, _really_! I would not call the likes of Alan Davies and Bill Bailey B-listers by any stretch of the imagination,

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As you say the perception of the B-list is subjective. For example I perceive Bill Bailey as being a man who is almost exclusively famous for appearing as a panelist on this kind of show.
Alan Davis is an OKish comedian and an OKish actor (I did like Jonathan Creek even if some of the plots were a bit obvious).
Neither of them would make the A-list in my view. Stephen Fry I'll grant you as an A-list celeb.

On the other hand I'm in complete agreement with my Dad on the subject of Jo Brand (and it's not a very favorable opinion) and I couldn't name the other bloke who was on this week if he owed me money.

Don't get me wrong. I like QI and watch it most weeks but It is, as my Dad says (and how I wish I didn't keep agreeing with him) "more entertainment for them than for us".

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Oh yes - if the Alexander Graham Bell "Ahoy" thing really isn't true...

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No, that part appears to be true. The part about "hello" being invented by Edison is the part that's false.

if the Alexander Graham Bell "Ahoy" thing really isn't true...

I'm pretty sure that Bell suggested hoy, hoy! for the standard phone greeting. He adapted it from the word ahoy. That's also what the character Mr Burns on The Simpsons says.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jheem,

Speaking of inventions ... An item in the paper.
Rutgers University, which keeps the notebooks of Thomas Edision, has just published a volume of his papers on the occasion o the 125th anniversary of his invention (on Oct. 22, 1879) of the high-resistance incandescent light bulb.

The author is Harold Evans. Sir Harold Evans, for 14 years the editor of The Sunday Times.



[I continue to believe that there are points to be made for, and credit to be taken by, several people.]

Sir Harold Evans

I'm not sure how Rutgers is marketing this new book, but Evans in his earlier two books on the subject (The American Century and They Made America) goes to great lengths to distinguish between inventors and innovators, (i.e., the people who make money off of and popularize inventions).

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I'm pretty sure that Bell suggested _hoy, hoy!_ for the standard phone greeting. He adapted it from the word _ahoy_. That's also what the character Mr Burns on _The Simpsons_ says.

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From quick Google of Simpsons sites it looks like most think he's saying 'Ahoy-hoy!", with Ahoy-ahoy and Hoy-Hoy coming in far behind. I couldn't find anything on the official site.

he's saying 'Ahoy-hoy!"

Perhaps. I always heard Mr Burns say "Hoy, hoy!", but maybe I was predisposed to this by the story that that is what Bell suggested.

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Originally posted by Cat:
Oh yes - if the Alexander Graham Bell "Ahoy" thing really isn't true, then why does Mr Burns answer the phone like that - what's the joke?

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The joke is that Mr. Burns is so old that he was around when that was the customary telephone greeting. I never understood the joke until now, and regardless of whether the story is true, the joke is funny.