As a young sprout reading yearningly about epic hikes in the Swiss Alps, I learned that hikers greeted each other with a polite “Grüezi” (grew-tzee). Grüezi is German/Swiss for “hello”, and short for “Gott grüez i” or “may God greet you”. Here in Montana we generally just say “hello.”
‘Hello’ finds its way into modern English from the Old High German ‘hullo’, which was used amongst other things for hailing ferrymen. ‘Hello’ becomes THE au courant American greeting in 1877 shortly after Thomas Edison, in a letter to T.B.A. David, then president of Pittsburgh’s telegraph company, promoted ‘Hello!’ as a telephonic greeting. It’s probably just as well that Edison’s hello won out over Alexander Graham Bell’s suggested “Ahoy!”
A civil ‘hello’ is good etiquette and a small but powerful bit of politeness, one that all libraries routinely offer their users. When in early September I walked into the Bitterroot Public Library (in Hamilton), a staff member posted near the door made me feel extremely welcome by looking me in the eye, smiling, and saying “hello”. It was a fleeting but potent interaction, evidenced by my clear memory of it several months afterwards. Her smile was genuinely infectious.
Accordingly, now infected, I smiled back. My responding smile released a flood of exuberant dopamine and serotonin into my own brain. These chemicals made me feel happy. Serendipitously, by smiling at me, the Bitterroot librarian simultaneously boosted her own happiness. Two people happy for the low low price of a smile and a ‘hello’.
There’s a ton of social utility packed into this smile and simple verbal greeting. In Japan, parallel to the Swiss’s expectation of ‘Grüezi’, trail etiquette encourages hikers to say “Konnichiwa” (hello, or good day). As this article explains, a shared “konnichiwa” goes a long way — it keeps one hiker from sneaking up and startling another, it conveys encouragement as each hiker toils on their shared trail, and most importantly, it infers “I see you, you are acknowledged, you are respected.”
One of the smallest but most important services librarians offer is being nice. When we smile and welcome library users, we’re acknowledging their inherent dignity, that is, their unearned worth and status as a human being. We’re adding richness to our mutual daily social interactions and taking a small step towards combating loneliness. We’re saying “You are welcome and respected here”, and at the same time, we’re pouring sunshine into the chemical soup sloshing around all our brains. That’s a lot of good health and social utility packed into a simple smile and “hello.”
Happy holidays.
Bruce Newell, Helena, MT
