[romanhn]

I wonder how many non-English speaking countries adopted hello as the default phone greeting. In Russian "allo" is used, which is pretty clearly traced to Edison's hello.

On the other hand, my US-born teenage kids don't seem to be continuing this grand tradition, presumably due to most peer communication happening over text. When called, they just pick up the phone and wait for the caller to speak first. If I stay silent as well, I get an annoyed "yes?" eventually. My lessons in phone etiquette have gone unheeded.

[bckr]

> and wait for the caller to speak first

You know why this is, right? Most phone calls these days are spam or otherwise annoyances. Many are literally just seeing if a person picks up. They’re listening to see if you’re a real human being.

The phone system is FUBAR.

[dghlsakjg]

This would be true if caller id didn’t exist. I suspect that these kids know perfectly well that it is someone they know on the other end of the line since it is incredibly rare these days for a person to call someone they know from an unknown line.

[romanhn]

I agree with the general point, and I myself don't pick up any unknown numbers. But - the kids definitely know when a parent calls, so don't think the spam thing applies here.

[vic20forever]

When I studied in Russia (early 90s, it was still the USSR), we learned to answer the phone with слушаю (I'm listening)

[vincentperes]

I believe Allo is inherited from french, that was used already before edison/phone as interjection.