Aught, meaning “zero,” is one of those odd terms where the original version—naught—was heard as two words, so people started saying an aught. This same process, known as metanalysis, misdivision, and a few other names, happened with napron and nadder, which eventually became apron and adder. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Etymology of Aught”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Yes, hello. This is John Davis calling from Sparks, Nevada.
Hi, John. Welcome.
Hi, John. How are you doing?
Good. Thanks. I’m interested in the word ought. My dad used it a lot. He was born in 1900, and when you asked him when he was born, he said ought, ought. He used it generally quite a bit.
He was from Tennessee. I was interested and looked it up in a couple of good dictionaries, OED and the Websters, and couldn’t find it, but I was spelling it with an O. And then when I realized it, I tried to spell it with an A and found it.
Ought, meaning zero.
Or nothing, right.
Meaning zero.
Most Americans would know it in the designation for weapons, like 30-06.
Right.
Which is 30.06, if you look at it as numerals.
Yeah, it’s interesting.
It probably comes to us as a misdivision, which is when people heard a not, because a not, N-O-U-G-H-T, also means a zero or nothing. And they heard it as two words, but A-N space O-U-G-H-T. So an ought.
This has only happened a few times in English. It happened with napron, which became an apron, you know, the garment you might wear in the kitchen or the tool shop when you’re working to protect your clothes. And it happened with the snake. It used to be a natter, and now it’s an adder, A-D-D-E-R.
And it’s really interesting to think about it. The whole thing is messed up even more because we have ought, A-U-G-H-T, which mostly means anything. Like you might say he didn’t know ought about baking. You mean he didn’t know anything about baking, but it’s used in negative constructions, so ought takes a negative kind of value.
Does that make some sense?
Yeah, that’s very interesting.
When I think about it, he did use the term ought.
He used the ought as well as ought?
Yes, -huh.
Okay. Was he American?
He was born and reared in Tennessee.
Tennessee, okay. Interesting.
Now, it’s funny, I think of people from the early 1900s as using the word ought. When the 2000s came around, we heard some people try to revive it, but it always seemed pretentious. It didn’t seem natural.
No, not authentic at all.
But yeah, that’s cool.
Yeah.
Well, John, glad to help you out with a little bit of history behind the term.
Thanks very much. I love your etymology on the air.
Thank you very much. Take care now.
Good talking with you, John. Bye-bye.
Goodbye.
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