Examples:
- One oh two Main Street
- Four oh seven PM
- Biology one oh one
- Eight six seven, five three oh nine
- Four oh four: Not found
Not just a US thing, so I hope this is okay to ask here. I have just never encountered this is any language other than English. Is it simply that O and 0 look similar, and that “oh” has fewer syllables than “zero”? I have not heard a good explanation from coworkers who I’ve asked.
Both. The letter ‘O’ and the number zero look similar, and it’s half the syllables making it easier when reading out a string of numbers. Like how saying “World wide web” is less syllables to pronounce than “www”.
I usually pronounce www as “dub dub dub” if it is absolutely necessary to be spoken.
If that puts me on anyone’s “to be punched” list, so be it.
And in the trend of languages adapting to usage, saying “www” seems to have dropped off once browsers started automatically inserting it and making it the default prefix if another isn’t used. Not that it isn’t used, just far less.