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.
Definitely not just a US thing, and it really is just the difference in syllables.
There’s a fancy name for it in linguistics, but shortening words in speech and writing is a thing that’s human.
Not every language shortens every word, obviously. But when something is common enough in usage, it gets as short as possible.
Zero is one of two single digits with multiple syllables. I’m still surprised seven hasn’t gotten trimmed down in speech yet. Closest I’ve heard is “seb’n”, which is a teeny bit faster because of three way the lips move with a b vs a v.
Since there’s a letter sound that closely matches the written numeral (and, being real, they’re written the same, just not machine printed the same), it just makes sense that “oh” gets substituted rather than it getting elided in some way.
This is probably a better question for an “ask linguistics” community or something, because yes, this behaviour does not seem to stem from any culture. But still, why only English? Spanish, Italian, French, and probably others also have a two-syllable word for the digit 0, but only in English is it commonly substituted for the letter O.
I’m just musing, but I wonder if there’s anything to the fact that in Italian, zero is already a contraction of the earlier zevero or zefiro, and speakers of other Romance languages maybe would have felt that idea intuitively or even, among certain groups, explicitly.
Then there’s the fact that French just get pissy about linguistic change generally. 🤣
That’s a harder question.
Part of it is the written version. O and 0 tend to look the same, so there’s a tendency to think of them as the same.
Part of it is the “hardness” of the syllables. Zero vs cero vs zéro, vs the confusing mass that is zero in Italian.
I hear less Spanish people say O, and I think that’s because cero is pronounced almost as a single syllable. The r is short, and the O is said with almost no lip shaping.
Contrast that with French where it’s distinctly zay-ro or zay-ruh with that nasal thing on the last syllable.
But, I have less exposure to French speakers (really only french Canadiens, a few cajuns and Creole, and whatever is on tv), so my sources could be skewed. Since all my experience with French speakers saying “oh” (usually with that nasal thing) is pretty much from people living in the US, it could be they picked it up from English.
My exposure to Italian amounts to chef boyardee and one exchange student
I have heard Germans do it when reading off telephone numbers, and I mean from Germany, not even living here in the states.