A post claiming that “Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, used ‘Hello’ as the first word during his initial test of the device. ‘Hello’ was the name of his fiancé, Margaret Hello. This word quickly became the standard greeting for phone calls worldwide and is still used today” is being shared on social media (here, here, and here). Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, introduced the word ‘hello’ as a common telephone greeting, naming it after his fiancé, Margaret Hello.
Fact: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 and initially suggested using the greeting “ahoy, ahoy” for telephone conversations. However, in 1877, Thomas Edison proposed using the word “hello” as a telephone greeting. Since then, “hello” has become the standard greeting for telephone calls. The woman in the viral post is Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, Alexander Graham Bell’s wife. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
A relevant keyword search regarding the claim made in the post revealed that the word ‘hello’ entered the language in 1827, as reported by an NPR article published in 2011. In the 1830s, people used ‘hello’ to attract attention. The article further states that Thomas Edison popularized the use of ‘hello’ as a telephone greeting. On the other hand, Alexander Graham Bell preferred using the word “ahoy, ahoy,” the age-old seafarer’s hail. And, in fact, ahoy was the first greeting used, until Edison suggested hello.
On investigating the first words that Graham Bell spoke over the telephone, we found that after the invention of the telephone in 1876, the first successful phone call made was to his assistant (who was in the adjoining room) and spoke “Mr. Watson — Come here — I want to see you.” According to a report by The New York Times, in 1877, Thomas Edison suggested starting telephone conversations with the word ‘hello.’ Edison advised using this greeting word to indicate that the person on the other end wants to speak, as he envisioned the telephone as a business device. Following Edison’s suggestion, people have since adopted the word ‘hello’ as a standard telephone greeting.
A reverse image search of the photo in the viral post revealed that she is Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, Alexander Graham Bell’s wife. An article from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, which includes a photo of a woman identical to the one in the viral post, identifies her as Mabel Gardiner Hubbard. The article notes that she was engaged to Alexander Graham Bell in 1875 and married him in 1877. According to a History article, “Bell met the then 15-year-old Hubbard while teaching at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes. Despite their 10-year age difference, they married in 1877.” Moreover, no reports mention that Bell had a fiancée or girlfriend named Margaret Hello.
To sum up, the origin of the word “hello” is not linked to Alexander Graham Bell’s fiancée.
