Dear British reader, if I have one.
I'm currently reading John Le Carré's "Our game" and the hero (a mr Timothy d'Abell Cramner, no less) keeps saying "Hullo" left and right. I've seen this before and always wondered about that U. Hullo? Is it a public school thing? An upper class accent of sorts? Why not hello? And could you give me an example of what it sounds like? Someone I might know of that says hullo?
Thank you ever so much for your kind cooperation. Please excuse my ignorance.
Sincerely yours,
Anna d'Abell Cramner
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5 comments:
Brits don't tend to say Hello in the way that others do when speaking English as a second language. We don't put the emphasis on the e, so Hullo is much more how it is said - not sure why Le Care spellt it that way though - perhaps one of your more literary readers might be able to offer a view.
Thank you Jo! And what a pleasure to meet you! A real British reader, sigh swoon and total happiness.
Hullo! I'm an English visitor to your blog (and very nice it is too- thanks for writing it!) and I only ever encountered "hullo" in the old fashioned children's books I read as a child- I seem to remember it in Enid Blyton- I think it comes from trying to write kind of idiomatically rather than correctly in days when things were much more 'proper' -if that makes any sense at all...
Hullo Karen! Thank you so much for kind words, so lovely to meet a new reader! And thanks for the explanation, I think we're on to something here. I read Enid Blyton too, my mother's old copies, and was always very fascinated with their picnics. Still am!
My grandfather always says "hullo there!" and he's quite old fashioned. And so did some of the quite posh people i knew when i was at school... hmmm.
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