Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 10:05:08 PST

From: tom creswell creswell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CROWN.NET

Subject: Re: Zero or "o"?



The use of "zero" instead of "O" in oral recitation of numbers seems to me

to be a quite recent innovation but now very widespread.



Just this morning, a female respondent to a phone call to a NJ firm recited

the firm's zip code as "zero 8 zero 1 6 hyphen 4 nine zero 7."



In the past, if my memory serves me, "O's" were almost universally used in

such situations.



I wonder if the innovation has been sparked by the difference in the zero and

the O on computer screens. My WordPerfect 5.1 prints out such numbers with

a capital "O," even though on the screen a distinction is made.



Tom Creswell