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