HeavenO

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'''HeavenO''' or '''Heaven-O''' is a 
church-approved breakfast cereal
 meaningless greeting coined by Leonso Canales, Jr. of Kingsville, [[Texas]], and promoted by a few [[Fundamentalist Christianity|fundamentalist]] wingnuts as a "[[Conservative correctness|more positive]]" alternative to "hello".

The intention is to avoid "hello"'s negative connotations of [[Hell]] (despite the fact that such connotations would not occur to most level-headed people and the two words aren't related anyway) and replace it with a supposedly more inspiring reference to [[Heaven]].  As Canales' website proclaims, "The 'O' is not enough to hide the most negative word (Hell) printed in every dictionary",<ref group=note>Most negative? Well, then FuckO off.</ref> while the "Universal greeting 'HeavenO' is a symbol of Peace, Friendship and Welcome."<ref>[https://archive.is/ao3xd "Greetings through time"], and [http://archive.today/yZIVS Main page] at HeavenO.com.</ref>

In 1997, Canales successfully persuaded officials of Kleberg County, Texas, to officially adopt "HeavenO" as the county's preferred form of greeting.<ref name=MD>[http://web.archive.org/web/20071215085841/http://www.mndaily.com/articles/1997/01/17/2982 "Texas Town says goodbye to 'hello'"], ''Minnesota Daily'', January 17, 1997.</ref> Subsequently, the greeting has grown in popularity within Texas and beyond, being adopted by some businesses as the correct way to greet customers. However, Canales' right to promote the word as his own invention has been challenged by others who claimed to have used it previously.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/19970525195813/http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/020897/heaveno.htm "'Heaveno' has received one heck of a response pall"], ''Lubbock Online'', February 08, 1997. Archived from [http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/020897/heaveno.htm the original] on May 25, 1997.</ref>

==Etymology==
Of course there is no [[Etymology|etymological]] link at all between the words "Hell" and "hello"; the latter deriving from "hallo",<ref>[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hello Hello], ''Dictionary.com''</ref> which ultimately comes the Old French "hola", which literally means "Ahoy there".<ref>[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hallo Hallo], ''Dictionary.com''.</ref> 

Linguistic arguments such as these are one source of criticism of the "HeavenO" trend, along with the fact that it's more than a little bit silly. Other common objections among more sensible Texans (yes, they exist) include "What's wrong with 'Howdy, y'all?'"<ref name=MD/>

==Similar examples==
{{wpl|Iyaric}} is a form of English used by [[Rastafari|Rastafarians]] that purposely eliminates words with negative phonetic associations. One of these words is “hello”, due to sounding similar to both “hell” and “low”, and so Rastafarians generally use other greetings instead.

==Non-examples==
Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver said Amen and Awoman during the swearing of the 117th congress. Conservatives have misinterpreted this as saying the words Amen and Awoman to be more [[Political correctness|politically correct]] by changing the word Amen to Awoman since the word Amen has the word men in it. However, the reality is that Emmanuel Cleaver actually said the word "Awoman" as a pun to joke about how Congress has a record number of Women in it. 

==See also==
*[[Euphemism]]
*[[Freedom fries]]

==External links==
*[http://archive.today/yZIVS HeavenO] &mdash; official website. Archived from the original, which is now a parked domain.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Christian fundamentalism]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Texas]]

Categories: Christian fundamentalism, Language, Texas