Saying Oh for Zero

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

I’m doing great.

Who are you and where are you?

I am Mary Beth Endicott and I’m in Greenville, South Carolina.

Greenville, South Carolina.

Mary Beth, welcome to the show.

What’s on your mind?

Okay, so I have oftentimes been in a hotel room that the number of the room is 409.

But when we refer to it, we say 409.

We don’t say 409.

We don’t say 409.

We say 409.

Why do we say O and not the zero?

I was actually talking with a friend recently, and she goes, oh, no, I’m a mathematician.

I say 409.

Of course.

Oh, really?

I was like, okay, that was interesting.

I hadn’t thought about it that way.

Isn’t there a cleaning fluid by the name of 409?

And that’s how they say it?

There is a cleaning fluid, 409.

And they don’t say 409.

Correct.

They don’t.

They say 409.

That’s true.

You know, what’s really interesting is that that capital O, that O sound, standing in for zero goes all the way back, if you can believe it, to the 16th century and possibly even earlier.

And I’m thinking about in Shakespeare’s King Lear, which was the early 1600s.

The fool says to King Lear, thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning.

Now thou art an O.

Without a figure. That is, the king used to be in a lot better shape, and now he’s reduced to nothing.

So that’s fascinating that O has been around for a very long time.

Yeah, and there’s other strange separations here, right, Martha?

So the British are more likely to say zero or not.

What’s also interesting, too, is that in writing,

The use of the word O like O-H to mean zero shows up a whole lot later.

Like it doesn’t come around until the 20th century or so.

But I want to go back to what Mary Beth said about her scientist friend or mathematician friend,

Which is there are these very specific applications where we are always going to say zero.

Like if something can be measured or counted or if there’s a string of mixed numerals or letters like a postal code or a seal number.

So we might say the temperature was below zero, but we would never say below O.

Or there was zero increase in population.

Or there are between zero and three guards on duty.

Right, right.

Or I put out 12 phone calls and I got O back.

You wouldn’t say that.

You’d say I got zero back.

Or you might say I got zip back.

Right?

That’s true.

That’s an Americanism or North Americanism.

Of course, everyone says 007 to refer to James Bond.

Right.

Yeah.

True.

Wow.

I’m going to be thinking about this.

But really what we’re talking about, Martha, isn’t it?

At first, it’s the visual similarity, right?

They look the same on paper.

Also, it’s a little more efficient.

But also, interestingly, zero has O as its final syllable.

So it almost feels like a short name.

True.

So it’s like a shortened version.

Yeah, but Martha’s got you exactly right, Mary Beth.

This is a long, hundreds of years of this.

But people know in circumstances where they have to be clear, they say zero.

We all do it, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mary Beth, I’m going to be thinking about you every time I run across this now.

I’m glad I can leave a lasting memory for you.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, take care of yourself and thanks for calling.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Cheers.

Bye-bye.

We enjoy your show tremendously.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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