Current Usage of "Hello"

[Duane Campbell]

I have always assumed such usage was 19th century. I can't give an exact
cite this morning, but I can picture Sherlock Holmes turning to Watson and
saying something like, "Hello. What have we here?"

D

----- Original Message -----

> I have a totally unscientific intuition that I first recall this in
> connection with MONTY PYTHON's
> FLYING CIRCUS. If true, then the usage goes back to the 1970s (?) for US
> audiences. When it was actually used by someone in a US publication I
> don't know.
>
> In a message dated 6/4/2005 6:45:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Fred Shapiro
> <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> writes:
>
>>The Historical Dictionary of American Slang gives, as its first citation
>>for _hello_ 'interjection used to call attention to the foolishness of an
>>idea, comment, etc.' a line from the film _Back to the Future_ (1985):
>>"Hello? McFly?"  Would anyone hazard a guess as to whether this usage was
>>coined or popularized by that film?
>>
>>Fred Shapiro
>>
>>
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
>>Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
>>  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
>>Yale Law School                             forthcoming
>>e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>