The OED gives as alternative spellings: hullo, hallo, halloo, halloa and others (some used only as verbs) and a rather perfunctory etymology mentioning only the Old French haloer.
Most variants are pronounced more or less the same, but effete and pretentious English people have developed a different way of greeting their effete and pretentious friends: Hellair!
1 comment:
Then there's the Spaniard's Ola! and Olé! which may or may not be related to each other and to the Englishman's Hellair!
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