21 November: World Hello Day

Today is World Hello Day, so here are 10 things you didn't know about the greeting, "Hello!"

1. World Hello Day has been celebrated since 1973, and was started as a response to the Yom Kippur War. The idea behind it is that communication at all levels is the key to peace – communication not conflict. The suggested way to observe World Hello Day is to verbally greet ten people over the course of the day (if you’re in England make sure you spread them out because talking to too many people at once is a heinous crime). The official website is at http://www.worldhelloday.org/
2. The word Hello first appeared in print on 18 October 1826 in the Norwich Courier of Norwich, Connecticut.
3. In Britain, the first occurrence was in 1833 when an 1833 American book called The Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett was reprinted in The London Literary Gazette.
4. Variations of the word can be spelled with any of the five vowels: Hallo, Hello, Hillo, Hollo and Hullo.
5. The word has been around in some form since way before the 1800s although it wasn’t always used as a greeting. It could have derived from the Old High German word used to summon a ferryman; the French for 'whoa there!' (holà). In England it was often used as an expression of surprise (‘Hello, that’s funny’); and hollo was the word often shouted during a hunt when the quarry was spotted.
6. Saying “Hello” when answering the phone is so natural to us now it’s hard to believe a convention of what to say when picking up the phone was ever up for discussion, but it was. Alexander Graham Bell favoured the nautical term “Ahoy” as a telephone greeting. However, Thomas Edison won out in the end, after, as the story goes, he said “Hullo”, expressing surprise, which was misheard as “Hello”.
7. One of the first computer programmes many children learn is “Hello World!” The first codes many of them write is one that causes the screen to display the words “Hello World!”
8. Between 2003 and 2012 there was an airline in Switzerland called Hello.
9. Hello! is a weekly magazine in the UK specialising in celebrity news and human-interest stories. Published since 1988, it is the English edition of the Spanish publication ¡Hola!.
10. Hello is often used as the title of a song. Artists who have recorded songs called Hello include Lionel Ritchie, Ice Cube, Kelly Clarkson, Oasis, Eminem, Prince and Adele. The musical The Book of Mormon also includes a song entitled Hello.

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

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