OH! What a pity

Linguistically, I am a pedant. No, please don't scroll off right away… just read me out!

By regular definition a pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules, or with displaying academic learning, andcertainly I could be deemed to be of such a pedantic disposition because I am concerned at one aspect of our colloquial speaking.

The habit of referring to a nil amount of something. as "OH". Not nought, or zero … thoughtlessly, "OH".

It is quite common in contemporary conversational style, and firmly evident within a section of our demographic which is not very concerned about how to employ what is accepted widely as correct grammar for speech.

Or perhaps this vocal style indicates an under-educated part of that demographic, (although the decreased quality of English grammatical tuition at school could have a bearing on this), whereas yet a further section of society seems entrenched in an attitude of disdain for any speech style other than their own. It's a societal habit that has become entrenched through sheer usage lack of grammatic questioning, or perhaps careless laziness.

But there are historical factors which could come into play in the acceptance of a speech habit which many consider to be traditional.

For example, the major infantry weapon until the late 1950s was the Lee Enfield rifle, traditionally referred to as the "three oh three", due to its bore's being 0.303 inches diameter.

I never heard it referred as the "three zero three". Often, its name was shortened simply to "three oh". This relaxed phrasing fits in comfortably with another sort of entrenched Aussie custom prevalent in day-to-day chat, the tendency to informalise and shorten a word by adding the suffix "o" to it, such as in this typical example:

"Me mate's an ambo and hurt his back, so he's off on compo. This arvo, I drove him down to the servo so he could get a check for his rego. Everything went good-oh."

"OH"has the distinct advantage of only having one syllable and flows freely as a suffix to many regular words, making it fit snugly into a speech style. But sometimes its use instead of zero can cause informational error.

People who use electronic voice communication extensively probably never transgress this guideline of proper definition and regularly will use the term 'zero', and less frequently, 'nought'. Typical of this cohort are aircrew and air traffic controllers to whom the substitution of the sound "OH" would be grossly wrong, emphasising that as in so many other areas of communications endeavour, it's a matter of the right 'horses for courses'.

Other users of radio voice communication systems are emergency services such as police, firefighters, ambulance operatives, as well as a large number of service operators.

Taxis and other car transport or service providers, maritime communicators, all generally use the phrase "zero" when indicating a numerical value.

As well as a verbal instance of potential error, there is sometimes the visual disparity to cope with where there is mixing of vehicle number plate letter and numeral assignments featuring the alphabetical "O" displayed together with a numerical "0". Obviously, this could cause identification problems.

Indeed, I wonder if there has ever been issued a car number plate OO-000? Even without layers of mud or grime it would be a problem to be absolutely certain of its registered number by relying on an awareness of the width difference between a printed O, and the numeral 0.

It would also be most noticeable to comprehension if the number "1" was rendered as "I", particularly if someone said that 10 a.m. was "Aye Oh" clock. Why not such a logical transposition of sounding? After all, they both look as similar as an O does to a 0.

Taking its place amongst wrongly pronounced letters is yet another offender, the overworked "haitch" used in place of "aitch", although this trend appears to stem from various religious or ethnic practices.

It has also been used widely in a comical sense, as in the case of a clever television advertising name recognition and branding campaign for the Sydney wood merchant, Hudson's, as actor Billy Kearns memorably espoused the company as " 'Udson's with a Haitch".

Turning to the printed or handwritten recording of text, there is a method and style used by many professional message handlers to overcome accuracy and intent challenges.

In written message transmission, it is often the case that an "O" is portrayed in its usual shape, but a zero is better written as on O with slash through it …êŠ.

This style of handwriting takes a little time to become an automatic response to hearing a zero within a message, but is a good way to avoid confusion, much as sometimes the figure 7 is occasionally written with a slash through the vertical stroke to avoid any confusion with a number 1 when handwritten speedily.

What I have discussed is the logical use of preferred styles to avoid information confusion. What I have not been able to discuss is how to help people avoid my pedantic frowning as I hear them say "OH" when the really mean "Zero".

Oh well… maybe nought will come of it all.