I love etymology*, the study of the source of words. Some of the words in our current lexicon come from some seriously weird places. Take the common greeting Hello, for example. Hello has one of the strangest sources I've come across, one that is seriously out of place with its current use.

Hello is a bastardization of a 14th century phrase Hie below. Hie is from Middle English and means to go quickly. Below in this context meant persons who were underneath the speaker. You see, Hie below was a warning yelled out by upper story tenants when they were about to dump their chamber pots out of windows or off of balconies. It was a very quick method of saying "Whoever is underneath me better get their ass moving fast or they're going to be wearing a shit coat".

Hie below, as is typical for common phrases, contracted over the years. The first commonly recognized contraction in print was in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream when Nick Bottom's character was being publicly ridiculed and despoiled. The feces coated weaver turned erstwhile player uttered the famous line "The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; such unkind act with nary a hielow". This use of the word is one of Shakespeare's infamous double entendres. Bottom is complaining of both the lack of courtesy in a warning as well as the rudeness of not being properly greeted.

Usage of the word gradually shifted. With advances in sanitation there wasn't so much tossing of shit out of windows any more so that connotation died away. The word survived though and finally morphed into the common greeting of Hello that we all use today.

* Not to be confused with 'entomology', the study of bugs. Although that's pretty cool too. NOTE: This entry, much like the contents of those chamber pots, is full of crap. The actual etymology of hello is boring as hell so I just made all of this up. Sounded good though, didn't it?

Posted by: Jim at 11:05 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 348 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Very interesting. Learn something new every day...!

Posted by: pylorns at April 06, 2005 11:23 AM (FTYER)

2 Well, you had me fooled. Unfortunately that's not too hard, I'm incredibly naive at times. My kids are always making things up and then laughing at me when I go "really?" Oh well. (I did look up what it really meant, but I'm not telling, so there pfbttt!)

Posted by: Rachel Ann at April 06, 2005 11:27 AM (jG2ss)

3 Damn Sam, Jim, that was good. Had me fooled, and now I've got to break out the gf's Complete Works of Wm. Shakespeare just because.

Posted by: Victor at April 06, 2005 12:21 PM (L3qPK)

4 Both ridiculous and believable. Until Shakes. Hey, did I miss the contest about your new political party slogans? Don't remember seeing your picks -- and good ones to choose from.

Posted by: Kenny at April 06, 2005 02:20 PM (sVrPB)

5 Most of that Shakespeare quote is real. The best lies are 80% truth. The contest is still open. I'll probably wrap it up tomorrow.

Posted by: Jim at April 06, 2005 02:47 PM (tyQ8y)

6 so I just made all of this up. Oh, you're a bastard, you are. Had me going. Now go look up the etymology of "bastard" and give us a good story about that one.

Posted by: ilyka at April 06, 2005 03:29 PM (wk1+o)

7 You suck! I was so ready to believe that and tell my friends. So, next time why not just leave that disclamer out and make us stupid blog readers look like the asses we are?

Posted by: Adamu at April 07, 2005 03:33 PM (bQFq3)

8 Too funny! I may have to try and convince my sister of this one. She believed our neighbor that she had to change the 'air' in the tires of her first car. Didn't want 'stale' air in the tires, they may go flat. I still laugh about that one.

Posted by: vw bug at April 10, 2005 09:29 AM (rhlNH)

9 yeah crazy. i thought "hello" was invented to answer the phone? i heard AGB thought "ahoy" would work.

Posted by: mickey mouse at April 25, 2005 08:58 PM (NICJR)

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