Current Usage of "Hello"

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:53 PM -0400 6/4/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On Sat, 4 Jun 2005 06:45:21 -0400, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>wrote:
>>
>>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?
>
>Now that I look for the line in online sources, I think the HDAS quote may
>be slightly wrong.  There are two relevant scenes: one in the present
>(1985) and one in the past (1955), showing that the relationship between
>George McFly (played by Crispin Glover) and Biff Tannen (played by Tom
>Wilson) hasn't changed over thirty years:

Heh heh.  Is it part of the speech act that the speaker has to rap
the addressee on the head at the same time?  As I recall, Biff does
so to George, as if to ask "Anyone home in there?"

Larry

>
>-----
>http://fusion-industries1.tripod.com/scene4thefamilymcfly/
>Biff: And where's my reports?
>George: Uh, well, I haven't finished those up yet, but you know I figured
>since they weren't due til..
>Biff: Hello, hello, anybody home? Think, McFly, think. I gotta have time
>to get 'em retyped. Do you realize what would happen if I hand in my
>reports in your handwriting? I'll get fired. You wouldn't want that to
>happen would you? Would you?
>-----
>http://fusion-industries1.tripod.com/scene8dadthedork/
>Biff: Hey, you got my homework finished, McFly?
>George: Uh...well, actually, I figured since it wasn't due till Monday.
>Biff: Hello, hello, anybody home? Think, McFly, think. I gotta have time
>to recopy it. Do you realize what would happen if I hand in my homework in
>your handwriting? I'd get kicked out of school. You wouldn't want that to
>happen would you...would you?
>-----
>
>Here are sound files for the line, "Hello, hello, anybody home? Think,
>McFly, think."
>
>http://www.wavsite.com/sounds/4137/back24.wav
>http://www.eventsounds.com/wav/mcfly.wav
>
>(You can hear Biff rapping George's head, as if he's knocking on a door.)
>
>The funny thing is, I remember the line the way it appears in HDAS -- as
>simply, "Hello, McFly!"  Google suggests many others remember it that way
>too.  Certainly that was the catchphrase among high schoolers after the
>movie came out. (And as HDAS records, the movie _Clueless_ revitalized the
>usage a decade later -- minus "McFly" of course.)
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer