by Nick Norlen, Senior Editor Maybe it was inevitable. And perhaps it was obvious. But honestly, it’s hard not to love it. We asked the internet public to vote to determine The GWOAT—The Greatest Word Of All Time. After multiple rounds and nearly 14,000 votes, they chose… love. Allow us, the objective language observers, to be sentimental for a moment. We acknowledged up front that it’s …
Where were you the first time you learned you could spell words on a calculator? For most of us, the answer is an elementary or middle school math class. Maybe you had a friend who taught you the numbers to push to spell hello. Or, perhaps you were busy with homework and noticed the upside down numbers on your calculator looked like LOL. Before long …
We use hello several times a day to greet people or attract attention. But as prevalent as the word is, it is relatively new. Where does hello come from? While use of the term hello dates back earlier, it isn’t recorded with this exact spelling until the 1800s. Hello is considered a variant on a number of other similar words—like hallo, holla, and hollo—that were used to hail and …