On this day, the famous inventor wrote a letter to the president of Pittsburgh Telegraph Company, in which he claimed that the best way to greet people in telephone conversations would be the word “hello,” which is pronounced “allo” in Russia. And you know what, he was right! The entire world began to say “hello-allo,” not “ahoy” as proposed by the telephone inventor Alexander Bell. The world “ahoy” was used to greet vessels and so was “hello.” In any case, the New Dictionary published in Saint Petersburg in 1806 defines the word “allo” as follows: “A nautical phrase used aboard a ship meaning “listen up.” This word is shouted into the mouthpiece at the ship, with which one wants to have a conversation so that its crew would listen carefully.”