Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 08:38:13 -0500

From: Orin Hargraves OKH[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COMPUSERVE.COM

Subject: Re: "zephyr" (= nothing)



This is just a guess, but it may be confusion with "cipher" (Brit.

spelling cypher), which of course means zero.



*Zephyr* also sounds like the Arabic word for zero, *sifr*, which is used=

,

at least in N African dialects, in all the ways we use *zero*. It is also=



the ancestor of cipher. But how it crept into contemporary English, I don=

't

know.



Orin Hargraves