Re: numeration system
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, December 16, 2004, 2:16 |
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On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 12:41:49PM +1100, Tristan Mc Leay wrote:
> I was under the understanding that Americans didn't generally use 'oh'
> for zero? Mistaken?
Mistaken. As I said in my last message, it is incorrect in radio
phonetics, but it is widespread in general use. For some speakers, the
"oh" is used in frequently-heard sequences - numeric set phrases, as it
were - but "zero" is used elsewhere. For instance, the HTTP "Document
not found" error code is nearly universally "four oh four", not "four
zero four". Similarly, US phone numbers are grouped mostly
geographically into three-digit "area codes", and the original ones all
have a middle digit of 0 or 1 - only within the past decade or so were
the phone companies forced to expand into other three-digit numbers -
and these area codes are heard so often in the vicinity of their
applicability that they become set phrases, too. This leads to the
occasional odd mixture, such as "four oh four five five five two one
zero three".
> I think a majority tends to pronounce 'zero' with the same vowel as
> 'pretty'.
Yup. I hear /'zI.ro/ far more often than /'zi:.ro/.
-Marcos