Greg Jenner

1902. Ennen kuukautta vuotta tehtävästä asiaa. Ne ovat kaikkialla. Sanoin, että hei kaverit, mikä on tietysti hieno asia. Tiedätkö, mistä sanoo hei? Ei. Ei. Se on sopimuskysymys. Se ei ole se, mitä Alexander Graham Bell halusi. Tiedät, mitä hän halusi? Ei. Sanoin alussa showin.

That's great. Thank you. That's really good. So where did hello come from? What a weird rich boy. Why do we say hello on the telephone? Because it's one of the most popular words on the planet, which is remarkable because it's quite a newish word. It's a newish word. I mean like a hoi hoi. It's distinct. Hello. It's a word that hopefully is going to kind of cut through.

It's Thomas Edison's idea, if I remember right. It's Edison who suggests that hello would certainly be better than a hoihoi as a form of greeting when you're communicating. But they're both hailing words, aren't they? A hoihoi is what you say to a sailor when you're hailing them, and in America hello was a hailing word.

Hello! Yes. So they're communicating at a distance. Yeah, because it carries. If you were shouting across a field, hello would carry. But in the UK, hello was a phrase of surprise. If I bumped into you on holiday, if the two of us were in the same cafe in Italy, we'd be like, hello, what are you doing here? So it was a word that existed already. Just sort of to mask your disappointment at seeing a local on your one bloody holiday. Addie Bohart gets everywhere. It took us eight days on the boat from here to hello, hello.

I like it. So hello becomes the official word because of Edison. He says it's got good, nice, clear, it cuts through the noise on the interference and it becomes one of the most popular words on the planet. And the hello girls are so named. Can you imagine though if we did ahoy hoy instead? No. The Lionel Richie song. Ahoy hoy, is it me you're looking for? Just so many.

I just can't bear to think how many boat shoes we'd have to be wearing. I'm very glad it's not. I just think the hoihoi girls doesn't quite take the same. I can imagine the Wonderbrad from the 90s. A hoihoi boys. I mean, just so much we could do with it. Come on, I'm bringing it back. A hoihoi magazine.

Olemme puhuneet Hello Girlsin ja siitä, että he olivat yrittäneet työskentelyyn. Tämä on todella tärkeä asia. Täällä on myös henkilökohtainen vaihtoehto. Olemme myös puhuneet tämän mukaan johtojen mukaan. Olemme puhuneet johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan johtojen mukaan

Wow. I'd love to be surprised that men didn't know anything about women's bodies, but that also remains constant. Actually, there are plenty of concerns that were raised by this new technology arriving into people's homes and into towns and cities and buildings. So, Catherine, I've got a mini quiz for you here. These are seven things the Victorians feared might happen to society because of the telephone. Six are true. One I've made up. Can you guess which one I've made up? Let's go.

Did people fear that women might commit adultery from home with the new technology of the phone? Men maybe would not stand up when phoning a woman. Were people fearing that there might be phone calls happening between people wearing their pyjamas?

There might be fears of lower class people phoning up posh people and harassing them on the phone. There might be fears that businessmen would hog the phone lines and women couldn't use the phone because it was so busy. There could be fears that telephones would invade domestic privacy. And of course, casual telephone speech, little idle chitchat, would destroy face-to-face manners and etiquette. So which of these complaints, worries, concerns was not a Victorian anxiety about the phone?

Oh for goodness. And the pyjamas thing too. What if they weren't wearing trousers on the phone? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. No, the one that was a lie, I said businessmen would hog the phone lines and women wouldn't be able to get on the phone. Exact opposite problem. Their fear was that women would gossip on the phones and men couldn't do business, Catherine.

Well, if the resource is finite, that's a reasonable concern, I think. But okay, fair enough. That's the made up one. Good for you. I mean, you and actually the operators, they had the power to just end a call, right? They could say, sorry, someone needs a line. Yes, they could indeed.

Two minutes is up. Do you want to put more money in? So they would interject into your conversation. Just going back to those anxieties, Catherine, just very quickly. It's interesting, isn't it? We once again have a lot of anxieties about the phone, about etiquette, about how it's changing young people, etc. It's interesting how new technologies scare us.

Tämä on suurin, ensimmäinen huomio, että naiset voivat vahvistaa ihminenä puheluissaan. Se alkoi juuri Franissa. Se on suurin suomalainen huomio. Luulen sitä. Edwardin alussa, 1900-luvun alussa, onko puhelun uudistus, tai onko se yllättävä? En sano, että se on yllättävä yllättävä.

Yhä enemmän maailmaa käsittelee telefonitietoja. 1920-luvulla 40% amerikkalaisilta oli telefonia, mikä on huomattavaa 1920-luvulla. Tämä on todella ympäristömääräistä. Yhdysvallat olivat hieman myöhemmin, mutta linjat olivat nationalisoituneet Yhdysvallan 1912-luvulla. Se oli aiemmin ensimmäinen maailmanvaihe. Onko se tärkeä päätös? Kyllä. Telegraafin nationalisoituminen oli aiemmin.

Muista. 1912. Joten kuka on hallituksessa, joka tekee kaiken tämän nationalisaation? No, minä tietenkin tiedän tämän. Se on juuri siellä. Se on Askwithin liberaalinen hallitus. Mutta se on todella tärkeä kysymys. Ja se on hauska, miten sinä reagoitit. Minä tein aivan saman. Minun mielestäni alkoi, miksi me jätetään kaikki tekniikkabillionneet tekemään kaikkea. Mutta se on se, missä me olemme nyt. Jotenkin, me olemme tehneet paljon historiaa siellä, Catherine. Vain 25 vuotta, todella, me olemme tehty sitä, mutta se oli todella suuri historia.

Well, it's been a fascinating chat, but it is time now for the nuance window. This is the part of the show where Catherine and I quietly eavesdrop on the party line for two minutes, while Professor Yuan tells us something we need to know about the history of the early telephone. My stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Professor Morris. We've been talking about the telephone, invented in 1876. I want to tell you about another invention that took place almost at the same time as the telephone.

These are utopian tales. The other moon is utopian. The Victorians invent the future that we think of as a future as a concept. It's really interesting. We'll do an episode on it one day because it's really good stuff. Because my brain is immediately going, well no, the people who wrote things down imagined the future as you're telling me they imagined it. But loads of people didn't get to. No, it's fair. We'll do it one day. So what do you know now?

It's time to know what you know now. This is our quickfire quiz for Catherine to see how much she has remembered today. You have been jotting down notes. Yes, will they help me? I've got ten questions for you. Okay. We've covered a lot of history, so let's see how you go. So, question one. What form of electrical long-distance communication predated the telephone?

The Telegraph. Very good. Question two. Which inventor submitted his patent caveat on the same day as Alexander Graham Bell? Gray. It was Elisha Gray. Well done. Question three. What did Bell say to his assistant Thomas Watson in the very first telephone call? Mr. Watson, I want you. Come here, I want you. Come here, I want you. I need you. I must have you. Come on, Watson. It's our time. Question four. What did Bell propose should be the standard telephone greeting?