Notes
- ↑ In many fonts the character for zero (number "0") and the letter "O" have slightly different shapes. In some fonts (and also in hand writing), where there is a need for a clear distinction a "slashed zero" (
) is used.
"Zero" is the usual name for the number 0 in English. In British English "nought" is also used and in American English "naught" is used occasionally for zero, but (as with British English) "naught" is more often used as an archaic word for nothing. "Nil", "love", and "duck" are used by different sports for scores of zero.
There is a need to maintain an explicit distinction between digit zero and letter O, [lower-alpha 1] which, because they are both usually represented in English orthography (and indeed most orthographies that use Latin script and Arabic numerals) with a simple circle or oval, have a centuries-long history of being frequently conflated. However, in spoken English, the number 0 is often read as the letter "o" ("oh"). For example, when dictating a telephone number, the series of digits "1070" may be spoken as "one zero seven zero" or as "one oh seven oh", even though the letter "O" on the telephone keypad in fact corresponds to the digit 6.
In certain contexts, zero and nothing are interchangeable, as is "null". Sporting terms are sometimes used as slang terms for zero, as are "nada", "zilch" and "zip".
"Zero" and "cipher" are both names for the number 0, but the use of "cipher" for the number is rare and only used in very formal literary English today. [1] They are doublets, which means they have entered the language through different routes but have the same etymological root, which is the Arabic "صفر" (which transliterates as "sifr"). Via Italian this became "zefiro" and thence "zero" in modern English, Portuguese, French, Catalan, Romanian and Italian ("cero" in Spanish). But via Spanish it became "cifra" and thence "cifre" in Old French, "cifră" in Romanian and "cipher" in modern English (and "chiffre" in modern French). [2]
"Zero" is more commonly used in mathematics and science, whereas "cipher" is used only in a literary style. Both also have other connotations. One may refer to a person as being a "social cipher", but would name them "Mr. Zero", for example. [2]
In his discussion of "naught" and "nought" in Modern English Usage (see below), H. W. Fowler uses "cipher" to name the number 0. [3]
In English, "nought" and "naught" mean zero or nothingness, whereas "ought" and "aught" (the former in its noun sense) strictly speaking mean "all" or "anything", and are not names for the number 0. Nevertheless, they are sometimes used as such in American English; for example, "aught" as a placeholder for zero in the pronunciation of calendar year numbers. That practice is then also reapplied in the pronunciation of derived terms, such as when the rifle caliber .30-06 Springfield (introduced in 1906) is accordingly referred to by the name "thirty-aught-six".
The words "nought" and "naught" are spelling variants. They are, according to H. W. Fowler, not a modern accident as might be thought, but have descended that way from Old English. There is a distinction in British English between the two, but it is not one that is universally recognized. This distinction is that "nought" is primarily used in a literal arithmetic sense, where the number 0 is straightforwardly meant, whereas "naught" is used in poetical and rhetorical senses, where "nothing" could equally well be substituted. So the name of the board game is "noughts & crosses", whereas the rhetorical phrases are "bring to naught", "set at naught", and "availeth naught". The Reader's Digest Right Word at the Right Time labels "naught" as "old-fashioned". [3] [4]
Whilst British English makes this distinction, in American English, the spelling "naught" is preferred for both the literal and rhetorical/poetic senses. [4]
"Naught" and "nought" come from the Old English "nāwiht" and "nōwiht", respectively, both of which mean "nothing". They are compounds of no- ("no") and wiht ("thing"). [4] [5] [6]
The words "aught" and "ought" (the latter in its noun sense) similarly come from Old English "āwiht" and "ōwiht", which are similarly compounds of a ("ever") and wiht. Their meanings are opposites to "naught" and "nought"—they mean "anything" or "all". (Fowler notes that "aught" is an archaism, and that "all" is now used in phrases such as "for all (that) I know", where once they would have been "for aught (that) I know".) [4] [7] [8]
However, "aught" and "ought" are also sometimes used as names for 0, in contradiction of their strict meanings. The reason for this is a rebracketing, whereby "a nought" and "a naught" have been misheard as "an ought" and "an aught". [2] [4]
Samuel Johnson thought that since "aught" was generally used for "anything" in preference to "ought", so also "naught" should be used for "nothing" in preference to "nought". However, he observed that "custom has irreversibly prevailed in using 'naught' for 'bad' and 'nought' for 'nothing'". Whilst this distinction existed in his time, in modern English, as observed by Fowler and The Reader's Digest above, it does not exist today. However, the sense of "naught" meaning "bad" is still preserved in the word "naughty", which is simply the noun "naught" plus the adjectival suffix "-y". This has never been spelled "noughty". [2]
The words "owt" and "nowt" are used in Northern English. For example, if tha does owt for nowt do it for thysen: if you do something for nothing do it for yourself. [9]
The word aught continues in use for 0 in a series of one or more for sizes larger than 1. For American Wire Gauge, the largest gauges are written 1/0, 2/0, 3/0, and 4/0 and pronounced "one aught", "two aught", etc. Shot pellet diameters 0, 00, and 000 are pronounced "single aught", "double aught", and "triple aught". Decade names with a leading zero (e.g., 1900 to 1909) were pronounced as "aught" or "nought". This leads to the year 1904 ('04) being spoken as "[nineteen] aught four" or "[nineteen] nought four". Another acceptable pronunciation is "[nineteen] oh four".
While "2000s" has been used to describe the decade consisting of the years 2000–2009 in all English speaking countries, there have been some national differences in the usage of other terms.
On January 1, 2000, the BBC listed the noughties (derived from "nought") [10] as a potential moniker for the new decade. [11] This has become a common name for the decade in the U.K. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] and Australia, [17] [18] as well as some other English-speaking countries. However, it has not become the universal descriptor because, as Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland pointed out early in the decade, "[Noughties] won't work because in America the word 'nought' is never used for zero, never ever". [19]
The American music and lifestyle magazine Wired favoured "Naughties", which they claim was first proposed by the arts collective Foomedia in 1999. [20] However, the term "Naughty Aughties" was suggested as far back as 1975 by Cecil Adams, in his column The Straight Dope. [21]
In spoken English, the number 0 is often read as the letter "o", often spelled oh. This is especially the case when the digit occurs within a list of other digits. While one might say that "a million is expressed in base ten as a one followed by six zeroes", the series of digits "1070" can be read as "one zero seven zero", or "one oh seven oh". This is particularly true of telephone numbers (for example 867-5309, which can be said as "eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine"). Another example is James Bond's designation, 007, which is always read as "double-o seven", not "double-zero seven", "zero-zero seven", or "o o seven". [22] [23] [24]
The letter "o" ("oh") is also used in spoken English as the name of the number 0 when saying times in the 24-hour clock, particularly in English used by both British and American military forces. Thus 16:05 is "sixteen oh five", and 08:30 is "oh eight thirty". [25]
The use of O as a number can lead to confusion as in the ABO blood group system. Blood can either contain antigen A (type A), antigen B (type B), both (type AB) or none (type O). Since the "O" signifies the lack of antigens, it could be more meaningful to English-speakers for it to represent the number "oh" (zero). However, "blood type O" is properly written with a letter O and not with a number 0. [26]
In sport, the number 0 can have different names depending on the sport in question and the nationality of the speaker.
Many sports that originated in the UK use the word "nil" for 0. Thus, a 3-0 score in a football match would be read as "three-nil". Nil is derived from the Latin word "nihil", meaning "nothing", and often occurs in formal contexts outside of sport, including technical jargon (e.g. "nil by mouth") and voting results. [27] [28] [29]
It is used infrequently in U.S. English, although it has become common in soccer broadcasts. [30]
In American sports, the term "nothing" is often employed instead of zero. Thus, a 3-0 score in a baseball game would be read as "three-nothing" or "three to nothing". When talking about a team's record in the standings, the term "oh" is generally used; a 3-0 record would be read as "three and oh".
In cricket, a team's score might read 50/0, meaning the team has scored fifty runs and no batter is out. It is read as "fifty for no wicket" or "fifty for none".
Similarly, a bowler's analysis might read 0-50, meaning he has conceded 50 runs without taking a wicket. It is read as "no wicket for fifty" or "none for fifty".
A batsman who is out without scoring is said to have scored "a duck", but "duck" is used somewhat informally compared to the other terms listed in this section. It is also always accompanied by an article and thus is not a true synonym for "zero": a batter scores "a duck" rather than "duck".
The term derives from the phrase "a duck's egg" for a score of zero. The following cricketer's rhyme illustrates this: [31] [32]
And when eleven are matched against eleven,
And wrestle hard the mastery to gain,
Who tops the score is in the seventh heaven,
Who lays an egg, in an abyss of pain.— M. K. Brodie (1865) [33]
A name related to the "duck egg" in cricket is the "goose egg" in baseball, a name traced back to an 1886 article in The New York Times , where the journalist states that "the New York players presented the Boston men with nine unpalatable goose eggs", i.e., nine scoreless innings. [31]
In tennis, the word "love" is used to replace 0 to refer to points, sets and matches. If the score during a game is 30-0, it is read as "thirty-love". Similarly, 3-0 would be read as "three-love" if referring to the score during a tiebreak, the games won during a set, or the sets won during a match. The term was adopted by many other racquet sports.
There is no definitive origin for the usage. It first occurred in English, is of comparatively recent origin, and is not used in other languages. The most commonly believed hypothesis is that it is derived from English speakers mis-hearing the French l'œuf ("the egg"), which was the name for a score of zero used in French because the symbol for a zero used on the scoreboard was an elliptical zero symbol, which visually resembled an egg. [34] [35]
Although the use of "duck" in cricket can be said to provide tangential evidence, the l'œuf hypothesis has several problems, not the least of which is that in court tennis the score was not placed upon a scoreboard. There is also scant evidence that the French ever used l'œuf as the name for a zero score in the first place. (Jacob Bernoulli, for example, in his Letter to a Friend, used à but to describe the initial zero–zero score in court tennis, which in English is "love-all".) Some alternative hypotheses have similar problems. For example, the assertion that "love" comes from the Scots word "luff", meaning "nothing", falls at the first hurdle, because there is no authoritative evidence that there has ever been any such word in Scots in the first place. [31] [36]
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of the word "love" in English to mean "zero" was to define how a game was to be played, rather than the score in the game itself. Gambling games could be played for stakes (money) or "for love (of the game)", i.e., for zero stakes. The first such recorded usage quoted in the OED was in 1678. The shift in meaning from "zero stakes" to "zero score" is not an enormous conceptual leap, and the first recorded usage of the word "love" to mean "no score" is by Hoyle in 1742. [37]
In recent years, a set won 6-0 ("six-love") has been described as a bagel, again a reference to the resemblance of the zero to the foodstuff. It was popularised by American announcer Bud Collins.
In certain contexts, zero and nothing are interchangeable, as is "null". However, in mathematics and many scientific disciplines, a distinction is made (see null). The number 0 is represented by zero while null is a representation of an empty set {}. Hence in computer science a zero represents the outcome of a mathematical computation such as 2−2, while null is used for an undefined state (for example, a memory location that has not been explicitly initialised).
Sporting terms (see above) are sometimes used as slang terms for zero, as are "nada", "zilch" and "zip".
"Zilch" is a slang term for zero, and it can also mean "nothing". The origin of the term is unknown. [38]
) is used.
In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. To encipher or encode is to convert information into cipher or code. In common parlance, "cipher" is synonymous with "code", as they are both a set of steps that encrypt a message; however, the concepts are distinct in cryptography, especially classical cryptography.
Tic-tac-toe, noughts and crosses, or Xs and Os is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with X or O. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row is the winner. It is a solved game, with a forced draw assuming best play from both players.
0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. Adding 0 to any number leaves that number unchanged. In mathematical terminology, 0 is the additive identity of the integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and complex numbers, as well as other algebraic structures. Multiplying any number by 0 has the result 0, and consequently, division by zero has no meaning in arithmetic.
In cryptography, a transposition cipher is a method of encryption which scrambles the positions of characters (transposition) without changing the characters themselves. Transposition ciphers reorder units of plaintext according to a regular system to produce a ciphertext which is a permutation of the plaintext. They differ from substitution ciphers, which do not change the position of units of plaintext but instead change the units themselves. Despite the difference between transposition and substitution operations, they are often combined, as in historical ciphers like the ADFGVX cipher or complex high-quality encryption methods like the modern Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
In cryptography, coincidence counting is the technique of putting two texts side-by-side and counting the number of times that identical letters appear in the same position in both texts. This count, either as a ratio of the total or normalized by dividing by the expected count for a random source model, is known as the index of coincidence, or IC for short.
English number words include numerals and various words derived from them, as well as a large number of words borrowed from other languages.
Theta is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter Teth . In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 9.
Ø is a letter used in the Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Southern Sámi languages. It is mostly used as to represent the mid front rounded vowels, such as and, except for Southern Sámi where it is used as an diphthong.
A null cipher, also known as concealment cipher, is an ancient form of encryption where the plaintext is mixed with a large amount of non-cipher material. Today it is regarded as a simple form of steganography, which can be used to hide ciphertext.
In morphology, a null morpheme or zero morpheme is a morpheme that has no phonetic form. In simpler terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix. It is a concept useful for analysis, by contrasting null morphemes with alternatives that do have some phonetic realization. The null morpheme is represented as either the figure zero (0) or the empty set symbol ∅.
In cryptography, a classical cipher is a type of cipher that was used historically but for the most part, has fallen into disuse. In contrast to modern cryptographic algorithms, most classical ciphers can be practically computed and solved by hand. However, they are also usually very simple to break with modern technology. The term includes the simple systems used since Greek and Roman times, the elaborate Renaissance ciphers, World War II cryptography such as the Enigma machine and beyond.
The dotted or slashed zero 0̷ is a representation of the Arabic digit "0" (zero) with a slash through it. The slashed zero glyph is often used to distinguish the digit "zero" ("0") from the Latin script letter "O" anywhere that the distinction needs emphasis, particularly in encoding systems, scientific and engineering applications, computer programming, and telecommunications. It thus helps to differentiate characters that would otherwise be homoglyphs. It was commonly used during the punch card era, when programs were typically written out by hand, to avoid ambiguity when the character was later typed on a card punch.
Bacon's cipher or the Baconian cipher is a method of steganographic message encoding devised by Francis Bacon in 1605. A message is concealed in the presentation of text, rather than its content. Baconian ciphers are categorized as both a substitution cipher and a concealment cipher.
In cricket, a duck is a batsman's dismissal with a score of zero. A batsman being dismissed off their first delivery faced is known as a golden duck.
The exclamation mark(!) is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a sentence, for example: "Watch out!" Similarly, a bare exclamation mark is often used in warning signs. The exclamation mark is often used in writing to make a character seem as though they are shouting, excited, or surprised.
The Alberti Cipher, created in 1467 by Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti, was one of the first polyalphabetic ciphers. In the opening pages of his treatise De componendis cifris he explained how his conversation with the papal secretary Leonardo Dati about a recently developed movable type printing press led to the development of his cipher wheel.
In object-oriented computer programming, a null object is an object with no referenced value or with defined neutral (null) behavior. The null object design pattern, which describes the uses of such objects and their behavior, was first published as "Void Value" and later in the Pattern Languages of Program Design book series as "Null Object".
The null coalescing operator is a binary operator that is part of the syntax for a basic conditional expression in several programming languages, such as : C# since version 2.0, Dart since version 1.12.0, PHP since version 7.0.0., Perl since version 5.10 as logical defined-or, PowerShell since 7.0.0, and Swift as nil-coalescing operator.
A subscript or superscript is a character that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, while superscripts are above. Subscripts and superscripts are perhaps most often used in formulas, mathematical expressions, and specifications of chemical compounds and isotopes, but have many other uses as well.
The aughts or noughties are terms referring to the decade 2000 to 2009. These arise from the words aught and nought respectively, both meaning zero.
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