It’s not like I’d done anything anti-social or disorderly. I hadn’t blasphemed, or covered the walls in grafitti. I’d simply addressed a Border Collie tied up outside the supermarket with a polite, “Hello, how are you?”

Maybe she was upset that I’d chosen to greet a canine instead of a fellow human, but in my defence, I’ve since discovered that people have been using hello to address dogs since the early 1500s.

Back then the cry of “Halloo!” was used to excite the hounds and spur them on to the hunt. Clearly it’s a word the pooches still respond to innately. The Border Collie definitely smiled and wagged its tail.

It was more than 300 years before we humans started using the “H” word with one another.

The Oxford Dictionary says the first published use of "hello" dates back to 1827,  though back then it was mostly used to attract attention, as in "Hello, hello, what do you think you're doing?" It didn't become a common greeting until Thomas Edison urged those using his newly invented telephone to say the word when answering.

His great rival in telecommunications, Alexander Graham Bell, thought "ahoy” was a much more appropriate greeting.

It’s disappointing that “ahoy” missed the boat. I like to imagine a world where people answer their phones in public with a hearty “Ahoy there, matey”. Maybe it could be a Bendigo thing? To make up for the fact we’re so far from the sea.

Bell felt so strongly about it, he used ahoy as his greeting for the rest of his life. Arrrr! You’ve got to love that sort of dedication.

Fans of The Simpsons will know that Monty Burns, deranged owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, often answers the phone with “Ahoy-hoy”. It would warm Alexander’s heart.

But ahoy never stood a chance. The first phone book ever published, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven, informed users to begin their conversations with "a firm and cheery "hulloa'", and the rest is history.

The same cannot be said of the phone book's recommended way to end a  conversation. Its suggestion: "That is all."

There’s definitely no lingering on the phone after that. It could be the greatest conversation stopper ever.

Personally, I’d like to see Kurt Vonnegut’s refrain “So it goes” from his classic novel Slaughterhouse Five adopted as the official end to every conversation. Those three simple, world-weary words simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. More than a farewell, it’s a philosophy for life.

But the final say on the matter goes to “Jazz Mann101” who commented recently on an Etymology website: “The real words uttered by most of us when our mobile phone rings are "Oh-Hell!".

So it goes…