SOMETHING terrible has befallen 'Hello!' and 'Whatever' as greetings, and it's a wonder if we can still reverse their downward spiral in recent years to becoming hallmarks of rudeness. 'Hello!' is now the ultimate public putdown, as when a Manila TV talk show host habitually used it a few years back to bludgeon a guest in the sense and tone of 'What you say is nonsense so you must be out of your mind!' On the other hand, the pronoun 'whatever,' in better days a respectable word for uncertainty, is now the slashing verbal equivalent of a sneer, as when a teenage son or daughter uses it to summarily dismiss parental advice in the sense of 'Go to hell with whatever you want!'

But it would be such a pity if we throw 'Hello!' to the gutter for all time. Many shades better than the juvenile sounding 'Hi!', this greeting has been a faithful handmaiden to the telecommunications age since it was first pressed into service as a telephone salutation on August 15, 1877 by the great inventor Thomas Edison. The device was getting popular and users desperately wanted a quick, more pleasant way to start phone conversations and answer calls.