Hello Essay

Hello is alternatively thought to come from the word hallo   (1840) via hollo (also holla, holloa, halloo, halloa).[9]   The definition of hollo is to shout or an exclamation originally shouted in a hunt when the quarry was spotted:[9]   Fowler's has it that "hallo" is first recorded "as a shout to call attention" in 1864.[16]

It is used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner written in 1798

    And the good south wind still blew behind,

    But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play Came to the mariners' hollo!

Hallo is also German, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch and Afrikaans for Hello.

    If I fly, Marcius,/Halloo me like a hare.
    —Coriolanus (I.viii.7), William Shakespeare

Webster's dictionary from 1913 traces the etymology of holloa to the Old English halow and suggests: "Perhaps from ah + lo; compare Anglo Saxon ealā."

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, hallo is a modification of the obsolete holla (stop!), perhaps from Old French hola (ho, ho! + la, there, from Latin illac, that way).[17] Hallo is also used by many famous authors like Enid Blyton. Example:"Hallo!", chorused the 600 children.

The Old English verb, hǽlan (1. wv/t1b 1 to heal, cure, save; greet, salute; gehǽl! Hosanna!), may be the ultimate origin of the word.[18] Hǽlan is likely a cognate of German Heil and other similar words of Germanic origin. Bill Bryson asserts in his book Mother Tongue that "hello" comes from Old English hál béo þu ("Hale be thou", or "whole be thou", meaning a wish for good health).