Just For Fun / Hello!

Hello you.

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

— Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

Hello.

Fun fact: "Hello" (or "hullo") used to also be an expression of surprise or questioning (as in "Hullo, what's this?") until around the turn of the 20th century when it became the standard expression for answering the telephone. It was popularized by Thomas Edison, though its current spelling is attested since 1826. ^note  Hello, or rather "Hollo" per the 16th-century spelling, was the first recorded English word. (This would have been the rather nautical "Ahoy-hoy!" if Graham Bell had his way. Mr. Burns would approve.) From there it went on to become the catch-all greeting it is today. In French, "Bonjour"^note Formal greeting, "Salut"^note Friendly/familiar greeting & "Allo"^note Phone greeting. In Japan, they say "Konnichiwa" or (on the phone) "Moshi moshi" (which has an incredibly similar quirky origin story). However, lots of countries do include some variant of "Hello" or "Allo" even if only for answering the phone. Interestingly, the German "Hallo" is still also used to express surprise or disbelief, but it's probably more likely in Austria than in Germany. The standard Spanish greeting, "Hola" (which comes from French via Old German, so it shares an origin with the English word "Hello") is also used to express surprise or disbelief (usually with a tinge of exasperation) when formulated as a question ("¿Hola?") and, finally, in the United Kingdom "hello" is still used to express surprise (often in a variation on the phrasing "ooh, hello") alongside being a (progressively more formal) greeting.

Related tropes include Crash-Into Hello, Hello, Sailor!, Stealth Hi/Bye, *Click* Hello, *Twang* Hello, *Drool* Hello, Attack Hello, Incoming Ham, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, and numerous others. Trope Namer is Real Life. Obviously. ^note Though it's indirectly named by The Princess Bride, to make Inigo Montoya's famous quote an All-Blue Entry.

Contrast Goodbye.

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Examples:

Advertising

• "HELLO THERE! I am Doctor Rabbit!"
• Hello, ladies. Look at me, now back to your monitor, now back to me, now back to your monitor. Sadly, I'm not on your monitor. Look down, back up. I'm on a webpage. ^note You just read this in my voice.
  — The man your man could smell like.

Anime & Manga

• Ga-Rei -Zero- has this gem (no pun intended):
  Evil Yomi: "Yello, Kagura~"
• Azumanga Daioh
  Chiyo's dad: "HALLO, EVERY-NYAN! HOW AH YUU? FAIN SANKYUU!"
• Mr. Popo
• Zetsu says "HALLOOOOOO!!"

Comics

• Inverted by Superman foe Bizarro, who is the reverse Superman, and thus does everything backwards, greeting Superman with a hearty "Goodbye, Superman" and usually leaving with a "Hello".

Film

• Crazy People: For George, this goes from his one word to a Verbal Tic over the course of the movie.
• Used in The Princess Bride:
  "Hello. My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die."
• Speaking of Rob Reiner: "HELLOOOOO, CLEVELAND!"
• In Day Of The Dead, the group regularly fly out on a helicopter, set down and shout HELLO through a megaphone. Seems to be their whole search method for survivors. That and calling on the radio, but the ones they have are in poor condition and don't have the range.
• In 28 Days Later Jim wandered through the deserted London shouting hello and would say it whenever he entered a building, searching for survivors. It became his catchphrase as this situation became more apparent and his naiveté began to evaporate, fast. At the end of the film the word 'hello' is incorporated into their signal to the outside world, spelled out on the grass on an idyllic Ghibli Hill, and (implicitly) is what caught the notice of their rescuers.
• In Star Trek (2009), after the USS Kelvin is overpowered and nearly destroyed by the mysterious black ship, Ayel hails them, calmly beginning the message with, "Hello..."
  • Ayel's captain is similarly friendly and informal when hailing the Enterprise:
    "Hi, Christopher, I'm Nero."
• Don't forget old Obi-Wan's "Hello there..." in A New Hope towards R2-D2. He did it before when he confronts General Grievous.
  Obi-Wan: "Hello there!"
  Grievous: "General Kenobi! You are a bold one." *laughs*
• Tony Montana: "Say hello to my little friend!"
• The fact that "hello" can turn into "hell" crops up:
  • Motel Hell is a comedy horror movie centering around Motel Hello, which has a faulty neon letter.
  • In Batman Returns, Catwoman smashes her "Hello There" sign, removing the 'o' and 'T'.
  • See: THEATRE below...
• "Hello. Do you have any idea, how I got here? Did you save me? Do, do you speak any English?"
• Played for Laughs in Monsters, Inc.:
  Randall: Say hello to the ScreamExtractor!
  Mike: ...hello.
• The memorable "Hello, Clarice" from The Silence of the Lambs. Although this is not what is actually said.
• Well.... helllLO! - the catchphrase of comic actor Leslie Phillips on meeting an attractive woman. Phillips made a career of playing slightly oily Lotharios in British films and on TV.
• In Scary Movie 3 the aliens say hello by choking people. George makes the mistake of asking how they say good-bye.
• In The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, the stars and exploding hearts of the Systar System announce themselves by saying "Hello!". Wyldstyle even has to imitate their "Hello!" to avoid getting caught stealing an exploding heart.

Literature

• In Slaughterhouse-Five, the standard greeting among Tralfamdorians, who see all of time at once and as unchangeable, is "Goodbye. Hello. Goodbye. Hello."
• Another example from weird science fiction: In Philip K. Dick's Counter-Clock World, time is running backwards, so people say "Goodbye" when they meet and "Hello" when they part. This becomes sad and poignant when the protagonist gets a call from his wife, telling him she's leaving him. She ends the conversation by saying "Hello."
• The Lord of the Rings: The standard Orcish greeting is "Ashdautas Vrasubatlat" — "Someday I will kill you", the usual reply is "Nar Udautas" — "Not today".

Live-Action TV

• The Three Stooges would answer the phone as if they were a barbershop quartet.
  • The Stooges' sung "hellos" were often quoted on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• "Hello, Newman." "Hellooooo... Jerry."
  • On a certain episode of Seinfeld entitled "The Voice", the titular character mocks his girlfriend's nighttime stomach gurgling with a loud, booming voice, bellowing "HELLOOOOO... la la laaaa."
• According to Look Around You's "Maths" episode, the numeral 3 equals "hello" in the "language of numbers." Also, on the show's periodic table, "Hello" (atomic symbol "Hi") can be found in place of selenium.
• In Doctor Who, after the Doctor recently regenerates into his eleventh incarnation, he drives away invading Atraxi with the following words in "The Eleventh Hour", after they discover that his previous incarnations are responsible for the defeat of hundreds of past Earth invaders.
  The Doctor: Hello. I'm the Doctor. Basically... run.
  • In the series finale, he starts out a Badass Boast/Rousing Speech with, "HELLO, STONEHENGE!"
  • River Song habitually greets the Doctor with "Hello, Sweetie!". Occasionally, he gets to say it to her.
• The Glee episode "Hell-O" covers this trope quite well. It even features several of the songs listed below and a reference to the origin of the term as described above.
  • It also parodied the standard "hello" greeting used on the phone:
  Will: For example, what do you guys say when you pick up the phone?
  Mercedes: "What up?"
  Artie: "Who 'dis be?"
  Kurt: "No, she's dead, this is her son."
• In an episode of Modern Family Cameron says that unlike his partner Mitchell who had to convince his parents that he was gay, his mother knew he was the minute he came out of the womb saying "He-lllllllooooo!"
• Allo, Allo, zis is Nighthawk...
• Tommy Cockles's catchphrase on The Fast Show. Unfortunate when he was cast as 'Third Nazi' (a "role I made my own incidentally") in a wartime propaganda film: First Nazi: "Sieg heil!" Second Nazi: "Sieg heil!" Third Nazi: "Hello there!"
• HELLO!! ...WHAT?? ...NAH, I'M JUST EXPLAINING THAT THIS TROPE WAS USED BY THE "ANNOYING PHONE GUY" IN Trigger Happy TV. ...NAH, IT'S RUBBISH. CIAO!!!
• Arrested Development had Annyong. Which becomes even funnier when in the last episode we learn his real name is Hel-loh.
• Top Gear: Only James May could make this one word the funniest thing ever. Especially when addressing a pretty woman in front of his co-presenters. ^note "You have to start with 'hello!'"
• They covered the origin story of the word in one episode of QI, in which Stephen Fry was mocked for still using it in the surprised sense of "Hello, what's this?"
  Alan: Stephen, what was the last thing that made you go "Hello?"
  Stephen: It was a genital wart.
• "Hello, Dexter Morgan."
• Rimmer in Red Dwarf has a ... complex theory about how aliens might say this.
  (referring to Lister and the Cat and their broken feet) 'It hurts like HELL, right? And it's beLOW the knees. They did it twice—TO. And (the recently completed) jigsaw must mean "you". "Hello to you"!'
• The final challenge of the 21st season of the U.S. version of The Amazing Race was for the racers to identify the phrases for hello and goodbye used by the Pit Stop greeters at each country they visited. They all took a long time because this was the one thing they didn't pay attention to.
• Every short from Drunk History begins with the narrator visibly gathering their alcohol-addled wits, focusing on the camera and intoning, "Hello."
• On The Nanny, C.C. Babcock usually greets people with "Hello, hello..." whenever she enters a scene.
• A running gag on Laverne & Shirley was when somebody (usually Laverne) would say something about something dumb or disgusting, Lenny and Squiggy would barge in and Squiggy always yelled "Hello!"
• Star Trek: Voyager gave us this with a duplicated Kathryn Janeway on a duplicated Voyager invaded by Vidiians and about to self-destruct.
  Janeway: Hello. I am Captain Kathryn Janeway. Welcome to the bridge.

Magazines

• In Great Britain, Hello! is a vacuous and copiously illustrated celebrity lifestyle magazine inviting we poor, mediocre and unattractive mortals to have a glimpse into the homes and lifestyles of the rich and attractive and worship their wealth and wondrousness. Amusingly, it went through a period where every happily married celebrity couple it interviewed were so content with their lives and so in love, that they ended up in a financial meltdown or a messy public divorce within a few months of being featured.

Music

• Hello, is there anybody in there? (Just nod if you can hear me...)
• Marc Almond's "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye."
• Eric Clapton's "Hello Old Friend."
• "Hello, Ma Baby," the ragtime telephone song. Most people nowadays know this as the song of a dancing frog and/or a ChestBurster.
• "Hello Goodbye"
• Hello, Darkness, my old friend.
• Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name?
  • Roger Waters, co-writer of "Comfortably Numb", the first example in this folder, also has a song called "Hello, I Love You."
• "Hello, is it me you're looking for?" And then he was run over by a tank.
• Hello, it's me. I've thought about us for a long, long time.
• Hello! HOORAY!
• Hello, hello, hello, how low?
• How the Public Image Ltd. song "Public Image" begins, with the echoing "Hello, Hello, Hello hello, Hello, Hello, ha ha ha!"
• Hello, hello (HOLA!) I'm at a place called Vertigo!
• Hello? Helloooo? Is anybody out there? HELLLOOOO!?!
• Hello there, ladies and gentlemen/Hello there, ladies and gents / Are you ready to rock?/Are you ready or not?
• "Hello Darkness...Hello Sunshine...Hello Not-at-all...Hello All-the-time...Hello Nowhere...Hello Oblivion, Hello Goodbye..." From the same song: "Hello end of the world! How are you? I'm fine."
• Hello, hello, baby, you called, I can't hear a thing. I have got no service in the club, you see.
• Hello, how are you? Let me explain one thing... (From "Master Passion Greed")
• Hello, hello, hello, hello... You know it's good to see you here again...
• Hello, I'm still here...
• Helloooooo, I love you... Is there anybody in there?
• Hello, how are you? How have you been?
• Hello, how are you lately? If you're ok, that's fine.
• Ferry Corsten's Passport United States of America mix features a track called "Hello (Original Mix)" by Poison Pro. Appropriately enough, it's the first track on the mix.
• "Hello, Dad. Hello, Mom. I'm a Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB!"
• 'Hello, again, hello. Just called to say "Hello".' —Neil Diamond, 'Hello Again'
• "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash". Also, "MY NAME IS SUE! HOW DO YOU DO?! NOW YER GOINNA DIE!!!"
• "Hello" by Australian group The Music/Potbelleez.
• Devo's album "Oh No! It's Devo" begins with a simple sequencer line, then: "Hello...this is...Devo." Then "Time Out for Fun" starts.
• "I just came to say hello." Martin Solveig & Dragonette
• "Hello./It's me again./Plain to see again./Please, can I see you every day?"
• "Hello, you fool, I love you. Come on, join the joyriiiiiiiiide..."
• "Hello again, friend of a friend, I knew you when our common goal was waiting for the world to end."
• Sometimes averted by Laura Marling, sometimes played straight... she introduces herself a lot of the time (even at concerts) by saying either "Hi, I'm Laura," or "Hello, my name's Laura."
• "Hello. How are you? Have you been alright? Through all those lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights..."
• "Hello, hello!"
  • In that same vein, we mustn't forget the faster-paced "Hello Hello."
• The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" starts, "Hellooo, baby!"
• HELL-O!
• "Now here she comes walkin look like uh zoo Hello Moon Hello Moon Hi Ella Hi Ella Guru"
• "Hello Brooklyn"
• "Hello, Vienna calling."
• "Hi my name is what/My name is who/My name is (chicka-chicka) Slim Shady."
• "Hello Radio"
• "Hello operator/Can you get me number 9?/Can I see you later?/Will you give me back my dime?"
• The famous "Hi there!" at the top of Peter Gabriel's "Big Time", actually spoken by guest drummer Stewart Copeland.
• "Hello Muddah, hello Fadduh, here I am at Camp Granada.^note  Marge? Is Lisa at Camp Granada? Sung to the "Dance of the Hours".
• "Hello! Hello! (It's good to be back, it's good to be back!)"
• "Hello, it's me, I was wondering if after all these years..."
  • From the same song: "Hello from the outside/I must have called a thousand times..."
• "Hello, World!" by BUMP OF CHICKEN (the OP to Blood Blockade Battlefront) with "Hello, greetings, I am here..." ("Hello, doumo, boku wa koko...") The final episode of the aforementioned anime shares the song's name, leading to fans sharing "Hello, World!" programs (see the Other folder as to what those are).
• "Hello, me, meet the real me!"
• "Hello, I saw you, I know you, I knew you. I think I can remember your name."
• "Hello, hello again!"
• Howard Carpendale: "Hello again, du ich möchte dich heut noch sehn." (It's German.)
• Gary Glitter: "Hello, Hello. It's good to be back, it's good to be back. Did you miss me, Yeah" (In 2030 maybe...)
• Bay City Rollers: "When you walked on by I thought I'd say hello..."
• "Hello, hello. Can you hear me as I scream your name?"

Other

• The ever-popular "Hello, World!" program, often considered a newbie's introduction to serious scripting.
• Virgin Mobile cell phones, whenever you turn them on, print to the screen, 'Hello' in a style appropriate to the phone before showing the Virgin Mobile logo, from the same font as they have on their website on higher-end Android phones, to Impact-Bold all-caps display on their low-end Kyocera Jax model. When the LG Aloha starts up, it doesn't say HELLO; it says ALOHA.
• Some CD and DVD players display "Hello" or "hEllO" on their displays when powered on.
• Motorola's slogan, which even plays during cellphone boot-ups, is "Hello Moto!"

Professional Wrestling

• Val Venis. Hello Ladies
• "Say hello to Mr. Socko!"
• "Say hello to the Bad Guy."

Radio

• Catchphrase of Clyde Gilmour, late host of the CBC classical radio show Gilmour's Albums - a warm, avuncular "Hello!" at the beginning of each broadcast. A parody show portrayed him singing The Beatles' "Hello Goodbye."
• Dead Ringers: "HELLO! I'M BRIAN BLESSED! WITH AN APPEAL! ON BEHALF! OF THE DEAF!!!"

Stand-Up Comedy

• George Carlin had an entire routine where he examined the myriad of ways there are to greet someone, verbally deconstructing many of them while listing off his favorites. He ended the routine with all different kinds of ways to say "goodbye."
  Carlin: Hello, hi, howdy, hey, how do you do, how you doing, how's it going, what's going on, what's new, what do you think, what do you hear, what do you say, what do you feel, what's shaking, what's happening, que pasa, what's up, what's going down, what it is? Well, we got all kinds of ways to say "hello!"

Theatre

• The title song of Hello, Dolly! (obviously).
• In Bells Are Ringing, Ella starts introducing New York City Subway riders to each other, and the Crowd Song "Hello, Hello There" ensues.
• Averted in Shakespeare's Hamlet, where the first line of the play could have been "Hello?" but instead was "Who's there?"
• "Please Hello" from Pacific Overtures.
• In The Book of Mormon, the opening song titled "Hello", presents the main theme of peaceful Missionaries that use by-the-book introductions.
• One of the songs from Franklin's Big Adventure, a stage show based on the Franklin books and animated series is titled "Hello" and is about the museum guide, Carbunkel, wanting Franklin's class to give her a big happy "hello" in response whenever she says hello.

Video Games

• Portal: "Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center."
  • The turrets are also adorably polite, even while trying to murder you: "Hello? Is anyone there? There you are. I don't hate you."
  • "Oh, Hey! You're the lady from the test! Hi!" Both times, GLaDOS wasn't happy.
  • " Hello!" "....Hello?"
  • "Don't believe me? Here. I'll put you on: heloooooo! THAT'S YOU! THAT'S HOW DUMB YOU SOUND!"
  • In the second game as well, Wheatley pulls this right after GLaDOS reactivates.
• In Paladins, one of the voice messages you can send to others in your team is "Hi!" (the keys VVGH), with some champions varying on how they say it. Most will just say "Hi!" or "Hello", but Koga asks for booze, and Strix syas that he can see you.
• In Rome: Total War, the content of your general's pre-battle speech is influenced by his reputation. Most of the speeches of Roman generals are strings of loud, gung-ho rallying cries. However, if your general is known as a tedious public speaker, there's a chance you will be treated to an almost inaudibly soft-spoken speech that goes something like this:
  Hello. We are gathered here today to do battle. Regrettable, isn't it? I didn't want to be here myself, but my grandmother told me that I better make a good show out of it. So here it goes.
• The Imperial Guard Ogryn in Dawn of War will sometimes say "Hull-lo!" when clicking on them, rather than the myriad permutations of "Yes sir!" that the normal Guardsmen use.
• In The Walking Dead
  Lee: "Hello".
  Stranger: (Pointing a gun at Lee while Clementine is locked in a room nearby) "Okay, th—this is civil."
• This is one of Balloon Boy's three lines of dialogue. The other two being the similar "Hi!" and a long string of laughter.
• In Smite, one of the voice messages you can send to others is "Hi!", with some Gods varying how they say it. For some reason, Ymir's "Hi!" becomes somewhat memetic.
• "HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!"
• Flowey from Undertale likes to greet people with a friendly "Howdy" even when he's done with pretending to be a nice guy. This is a trait he takes from his father, Asgore. In contrast, the Fallen Child introduces themself with a formal "Greetings", like their adoptive mother Toriel does.
• Overwatch has a dedicated "Hello!" button for each and every hero, including villains such as Widowmaker and Reaper, the former speaking French, the latter saying variants of "Hey".
• The first of Clippy's five default lines in Progressbar 95 is "Hello!" It's his only line in Progressbar Defender.
• In Super Mario 64, Mario's head will say "Hello!" to the player when he first appears on the title screen.

Webcomics

• Used in the Copper Copper webcomic Big Robot as a generic greeting.
• Also used in the Order of the Stick parody of the phrase. Check out panel five.
• In Gunnerkrigg Court, Boxbot's traditional greeting is "Hellooo!" Unfortunately for Boxbot, he is universally agreed to be "Terrible".

Web Original

• Hello.jpg was the name of the infamous image from goatse.cx.
• Homestar Runner does this in a Shout-Out to The Three Stooges in "The Search for the Yellow Dello:"
  Homestar: "Hello! Yellow! Dello!"
• "Oh, hello [in some foreign language you don't know and won't bother to look up] , didn't hear you come in. Greetings and welcome to Ask That Guy with the Glasses."
  • "Hello, I'm The Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to."
  • "Hello and welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn."
• bebeep; bebeep; beboop; hello!
• This is what Mine Turtle says. Typically right before exploding.
• Hey all, Scott here.
• HELLO? YES, THIS IS DOG
• O hai!
• Hello. How are you? I'm under da water. Please helps me. Here too much raining, woohoo!
• "Hello, hello, hello my subjects!"
• Filthy Frank teaches you about 30 of them in different languages. In case you didn't know, it's all just parodies and none of them actually meant "Hello". It's just Frank's style.
  Welcome to the rice fields, motherfucker!!
• Tim Rogers begins his Action Button videos with an emphatic "Hello, and welcome back to video games."
• Oh hi!
• In Scootertrix the Abridged, The Bird frequently repeats the word 'Hello' as a Verbal Tic caused by brain trauma. While initially an annoyance, Twilight comes to exploit this in later episodes, occasionally using the word to call her to attention.
• (turns around in chair) "Hi again. It's me."

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender "Hello. Zuko here." Even cuter version◊.
• Dragon Tales has a Dragon Tune song called "Hello" encouraging viewers to "Get up off your feet and to everyone you meet say hello, hello, hello!" It also did another one to the same tune called "Hola," which is just "Hello" in Spanish.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • When Eddy reluctantly lets Cloudcuckoolander Ed advertise En-O-Gee drinks, the following occurs:
    Eddy: (under his breath, telling Ed what he's supposed to say) Ladies and gentlemen...
    Ed: LADIES AND GENTLE-HEADS!
    Eddy: ...come buy a delicious...
    Ed: COME BUY A DECIDUOUS... uh...
    Eddy: ...En-O-Gee Drink.
    Ed: HELLO!
  • In a later episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy Rolf is showing off with a soccer ball while repeatedly saying, "Hello, goodbye."
    • While on his phone, Eddy says "Yello?"
• Elmer Fudd says 'Hewwo' in a few Looney Tunes cartoons.
• In the 1937 Merrie Melodies cartoon Little Red Walking Hood, the Wolf, in an attempt to gather the attention of Red Riding Hood behind him, pulls the "Automatic Wink" button on his car he's driving, turning the license plate that says "07734" upside down so that it says "hELL0".
• Megamind: "Ollo?"
• "One Froggy Evening": "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal..."
• The Simpsons:
  • Homer Simpson pronounces it "Y'ello". On one episode set in France, he answers the phone "Ye-bonjour".
  • Mr. Burns uses the more antiquated "Ahoy-hoy".
  • "HELLO, ST LOUIS!"
• In South Park, Chef's Catchphrase is is a jolly "Hello there, children!"
• Team America: World Police: Kim Jong-Il would like to say "Herro."
• Lilo & Stitch meet with this. Stitch gives a guttural, drawn-out "hiiii", coupled with what's supposed to be a smile. Lilo loves him on the spot. He also does the same greeting a few more times in the sequels and spin-offs, along with the obligatory for the original continuity's setting, "Aloha!", usually in the form of "Aloha, cousin!"
• "Hello, everypony. Did I miss anything?"
  • "HI GIRLS!"
• Governor Kevin in Teamo Supremo. "H'yello, you got yer guv."
• Casper the Friendly Ghost typically greets everyone with a big, friendly "Hello." Of course, since he's a ghost, his common courtesy usually isn't returned.
• Animaniacs: "HELLOOOOO NURSE!"
  • There's a soundtrack-exclusive track on one of the show's albums called "The Hello Song", which talks about many ways to say "hello" around the world.
• The Catchphrase of The Red Guy from both Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel: "Hellooo! It's me... (insert his alias of the episode here)"
• Wayside: It isn't often shown, but Louis often answers the phone with "Jello?".
  • Also, in the pilot, when Todd's classmates greet him on his first day at Wayside, the three Erics sing "hello" barbershop style.
• Despicable Me and Minions: The Minions say "bello".
• Kim Possible: One of the Oh Boyz' songs is called "Hello Hello Hello".
• In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode Destroy Malevolence, Grievous jumps down behind Obi-Wan and says "Hello there!", mirroring their final exchange in Revenge of the Sith.

Real Life

• Real Life Aversion: there are actually people out there who shun the word "Hello" because of the "Hell" part, and say "Heaveno" instead. Some alternative alternatives:
  • Hey and Hey Hey! (Not to Be Confused with "Hey, hey, hey!".)
  • Hi
  • Hola
  • G'day
  • Hey There
  • Yo
  • Howdy
  • 'Sup?
  • (People who think they are important) Yes?
  • And many more...
• Pun: Hell-low. Used in the Nirvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit, to represent moral decadance. "How low" is substituted in in some verses.
• A number of languages have special greetings just for the phone:
  • The original English phone greeting (suggested by Alexander Graham Bell himself) was "Ahoy" or "Ahoy hoy." Sadly, most people don't use it.
    • Amusingly, "Ahoy" is the Czech "Hello" (maybe because of the popularity of the little mole?)
  • In Italy, people say "Pronto!" ("Ready!") at the telephone.
  • Mexicans say "Bueno", which was used in the early years of phone to signal that the connection was good.
  • The rest of Spanish-speaking Latin America says "Aló", except in Argentina where it's instead said "Buenos Días/Tardes/Noches", or alternativatelly, "¿Qué contás?" (What can you tell?).
  • And in Spain, if the speaker doesn't know who's on the other line, they often say "Díme" or "Dígame" literally "tell me" or "say it to me."
  • The Japanese use "moshi moshi" only for telephones or catching somebody's attention.
  • The Chinese say "Wéi?" ("喂？") on the phone. The pronunciation may differ for non-Mandarin Chinese speakers.
  • While in Poland "Halo" is an acceptable way of answering a phone, "Słucham" (meaning "I listen") is much more common.
  • German speakers sometimes say "Tag!", which translates to "day". The reason for this is that it's short for "Guten Tag!" which means "Good day!". "Hello" is sometimes used by Germans to mean "Duh!" (semantically equivalent to knocking on someone's head and saying "Is there anybody in here?").
• Live in Scotland? The typical greeting to someone you consider a best friend might be "Awrite bawbag?!" ^note or "Alright Ballbag?!" if you can't understand Scottish slang.
• Tiger Woods famously said this in his first official press conference as a professional golfer on August 28, 1996.
  Tiger Woods: I guess, "Hello, World."
• Sports commentator Jim Nantz traditionally begins broadcasts by saying, "Hello, friends." It's also his opening catchphrase on many versions of the videogame Golden Tee, which he provides commentary for.

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Good bye.

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