hail verb:1 a friend hailed him from the upper deck: greet, salute, address, halloo, speak to, call out to, shout to, say hello to, initiate a discussion with, talk to; nod to, wave to, smile at, signal to, lift one's hat to, acknowledge; accost, approach, waylay, stop, catch; informal collar, buttonhole; Brit. informal nobble. ANTONYMS say goodbye to.
2 he hailed a cab: flag down, wave down, signal to stop, gesture to stop, make a sign to; call to, shout to; summon, accost.
3 the critics hailed the new film as a masterpiece: acclaim, praise, applaud, commend, rave about, extol, eulogize, vaunt, hymn, lionize, express approval of, express admiration for, pay tribute to, speak highly of, sing the praises of, make much of; glorify, cheer, salute, exalt, honour, hurrah, hurray, toast, welcome, pay homage to; N. Amer. informal ballyhoo; black English big up; dated cry up; archaic emblazon; rare laud, panegyrize. ANTONYMS criticize, condemn.
4 the band's twenty-six members all HAIL FROM Wales: come from, be from, be a native of, have been born in, originate in, have one's roots in; be … (by birth); live in, have one's home in, inhabit, be an inhabitant of, be settled in, reside in, be a resident of.
noun: a hearty hail greeted me: greeting, hello, hallo, halloo, call, cry, shout, salutation; acknowledgement, welcome, salute. ANTONYMS farewell.
-FAREWELL as in AVE ATQUE VALE: Hail and farewell. That's Latin and if you ever took Latin you probably think of Julius Caesar. If you're Catholic, you probably think of Ave Maria (Hail Mary), if not the prayer, then the hymn/carol, sung by everyone at Christmas time. You notice that no one ever says "Hail, Jesus". Too informal, I guess.
I finally looked up hail from because it's such an annoying cliché and everyone uses it, even articulate reporters and interviewers in the NYT or Manchester Guardian. Is there no other way of saying where a person comes from?
I have never said "I hail from". I'll say, when asked where I come from, "Winnipeg, born and bred", or just - Winnipeg.
My other pet peeve is almost as annoying and almost as ubiquitous. Without further ado. Even academics, with a large vocabulary on the tip of their tongues, fall back on this tired tired way of winding up a tedious introduction of the guest speaker. Without further ado, let's go to the bar,I want to say.
"without further ado Also, without more ado. Without more work, ceremony, or fuss. For example, Without further ado they adjourned the meeting and went home, or And now, without more ado, here is our speaker of the day. This idiom has one of the few surviving uses of the noun ado, meaning “what is being done.” (Another is much ado about nothing.) [Late 1300s] " Online Dictionary
NOTE FROM ME: We have Shakespeare to thank for the perpetuation of the latter phrase.
ado has some lovely synonyms: fuss, trouble, bother, upset, agitation, commotion, stir, hubbub, confusion, excitement, tumult, disturbance, hurly-burly, uproar, flurry, to-do, palaver, rigmarole, brouhaha, furore; N. Amer. fuss and feathers; Indian tamasha; informal hassle, hoo-ha, ballyhoo, hoopla, rumpus, flap, tizz, tizzy, stew, song and dance, performance, pantomime; Brit. informal carry-on, kerfuffle."
Why stop at ado?
Do you have some pet peeves?