Nought , Zero or Oh ?

Blonked · 29 Dec 2019 at 09:09

ultralaser said:
I'm using it currently to describe the point of this thread.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=nought&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4;,nought;,c0;,s0;;nought;,c0;;Nought;,c0#t4;,nought;,c0;,s0;;nought;,c0;;Nought;,c0

You'll be pleased to hear that it looks like nought is trying to stage a comeback.

Efour · 29 Dec 2019 at 09:12

if reading a telephone number in english ill start with an "oh"2"oh"8 then from there will be zero,,,,, no idea why

rxodium · 29 Dec 2019 at 09:18

Phone numbers: Oh.
Programming: Zero.
Flamboyant word smith. Nought.
If I wanna be really spicy. Aught.

Terminal_Boy · 29 Dec 2019 at 09:44

rxodium said:
Phone numbers: Oh.
Programming: Zero.
Flamboyant word smith. Nought.
If I wanna be really spicy. Aught.

No love for “ought”? The Yanks like to mix it up. For example the rifle cartridge “.30 - 06” is pronounced “ thirty ought six”.

rxodium · 29 Dec 2019 at 09:51

Aught is the American spelling.

haaammit · 30 Dec 2019 at 19:10

Zero for 0
O for O
Easy!

ttaskmaster · 6 Jan 2020 at 11:04

When communicating numbers to someone, zero is the standard.
When speaking about something that has become engrained in culture, communication is usually easier if you just continue the convention - As in a Thirty-Cal or Fifty-Cal, Thirty Aught-Six, Three-Oh-Three Lee Enfield, etc...

wolfie138 · 6 Jan 2020 at 14:32

has it been specified whether Bond's number has two letters at the start, or two numbers? :-/

wolfie138 · 6 Jan 2020 at 14:33

haaammit said:
Zero for 0
O for O
Easy!

Hawaii Five Zero.
Just not right.

ttaskmaster · 6 Jan 2020 at 15:06

wolfie138 said:
has it been specified whether Bond's number has two letters at the start, or two numbers? :-/

It's a code name, but it comprises all numbers, according to Fleming. All the top secret signals during the war had a Double-O prefix, as in the reference number of the German diplomatic code 0075 in the Zimmermann Telegram - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram. The OO supposedly came from John Dee's secret messages to Elizabeth 1st, with the OO representing a pair of eyes, as in For Your Eyes Only.
It's all a massive Intelligence Community in-joke, basically.

Yaayuh! · 6 Jan 2020 at 16:07

In regards to 0, I never say "nought", vast majority of the time use "zero", very rarely call it an "oh", unless it's something like James Bond's "007" or "Hawaii Five-0" where it's generally meant that way.

Azza said:
How about suggestions on mixing it up a bit?

null eight null null five

The SQL admin side of me is triggering at the idea of 0 and Null being the same thing.

Angilion · 6 Jan 2020 at 17:36

Rossi~ said:
In regards to 0, I never say "nought", vast majority of the time use "zero", very rarely call it an "oh", unless it's something like James Bond's "007" or "Hawaii Five-0" where it's generally meant that way. [..]

On the other hand, both of those examples were meant to be zeroes and have only changed because of common incorrect usage. Literally.

Lokwyr · 2 Feb 2020 at 21:51

"O" is a letter.
Zero is a number.
Nought is archaic for nothing.
Nada, zip, zilch, f.all, are the common touch.

McBain · 3 Feb 2020 at 10:35

It'z zero, because:

CircleFaust · 3 Feb 2020 at 11:34

i use Zero now pretty much all of the time when giving out phone numbers, logins, email addresses etc
using Oh is not clear enough these days, was ok when you were only using for phone numbers 30 years ago

Bubo · 3 Feb 2020 at 11:55

All you buggers "claiming" never to never use the word nought, how do you say 0.1 or 0.5 eh? Eh? And don't even DREAM about claiming you say oh point one, cos nobody says that. And saying zero point one is probably restricted to Professor Brian Cox.

Anyway, I think we can all agree it is nil, when talking about the Eurovision song contest.

Edit: I bet some clever sod is going to say, "Actually, it is not compulsory to even say the 0, I just say point one, so stick that in your pipe etc"

Yaayuh! · 3 Feb 2020 at 13:00

Bubo said:
All you buggers "claiming" never to never use the word nought, how do you say 0.1 or 0.5 eh? Eh? And don't even DREAM about claiming you say oh point one, cos nobody says that. And saying zero point one is probably restricted to Professor Brian Cox.

Anyway, I think we can all agree it is nil, when talking about the Eurovision song contest.

Edit: I bet some clever sod is going to say, "Actually, it is not compulsory to even say the 0, I just say point one, so stick that in your pipe etc"

Point 1, point 5, zero point 1, or zero point five.

Bubo · 3 Feb 2020 at 13:15

How's about 0.000001? And don't say one to the ee minus six.

Yaayuh! · 3 Feb 2020 at 13:21

Bubo said:
How's about 0.000001? And don't say one to the ee minus six.

?

Point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, one.
or
Zero point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, one.

I don't understand your point though.

Bubo · 3 Feb 2020 at 13:23

Oh, I thought you might be playing along. You're being serious I see, professor.