Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 July 11

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July 11

How do you pronounce 400 in "a 400-level Foo course"

I know Foo 101 is "one-oh-one", but how do you usually pronounce "a 400-level Foo course"? Like, four-hundred, four-oh-oh, four-double-oh, or what? And what about, say, Foo 421? (I've looked at Course (education)#US course numbering system but it doesn't even mention one-oh-one...) Thanks, 77.147.79.62 (talk) 15:00, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I did one of my undergrads at a US institution, and people there always pronounced it "four hundred" and "four twenty-one" in your examples. I think I personally said "four oh zero", but I'm weird. Nowadays I'd probably also say "four two one", but that comes from a decade of work in industries loud enough that you had to shout each digit individually like an ICAO radio operator. Folly Mox (talk) 15:09, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

As an aside, I've noticed that the construction "double-n" for some digit n is extremely rare in spoken US English. Folly Mox (talk) 15:13, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The article section English_numerals#Cardinal_numbers has a table with a column for "What is your house number?" in vernacular American usage. I have usually heard course numbers follow this pattern. That makes 400 "four hundred", 401 "four oh one", and 421 "four twenty-one". --Amble (talk) 16:21, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• As an aside, I had never heard the number 0 said as "oh" in any context outside cases such as the above, that is, always where there are other numbers involved. Nobody would ever say "There were oh apples at the store today". But something that has crept into the Australian sporting vernacular is oh instead of nil or zero in reporting scores. Example: If Carltonwood has won all 12 games it has played so far this season, that would be regularly reported as "12 and oh" (12 wins, 0 losses). It sounds extremely off and weird to my ears. But then, sporting commentators are renowned for their extraordinary "creativity" in the use of the language. The litany of their atrocities, like Tolkien's road, goes ever on. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:08, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
  • The construct is pretty common in American English sports commentary. A win-loss record of something-and-oh, or oh-and-something. A baseball batter going oh-for-four, for example, or just "oh-fer". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
    • Also the ball-and-strike count: oh-and-two, three-and-oh, etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
      • Now I know whom to blame. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:23, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
        • Zero has two syllables, while oh has one. That accounts for many of its usages. Prior to the year 2010, a minority of American broadcasters were saying, for example, "twenty-oh-1" rather than "two thousand one". That term "nil" is probably only used in soccer matches, having been borrowed from overseas usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Just wait until you hear about 25-oh-6-to-4. --Amble (talk) 23:09, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• As another aside, phone numbers in the US and Canada used to be commonly written in forms like "HO1-2304", where HO was the first letters of the name of the telephone exchange, say "Howard". This could either be pronounced "Howard one, two three zero four" or "H O one, two three zero four", but would be dialed as 861-2304 (See File:Rotarydial.JPG.). I remember seeing instructions from my phone company to always say "zero" and never "oh", because "H O one, two three O four" should mean to dial 861-2364. But this was different in England, because when British phones still had letters, the letter O was moved out of alphabetical order onto the 0 position, precisely in order to avoid this sort of confusion; and in my experience British people were, at one time, indeed more likely to say "oh" for 0 in a telephone number. --142.112.221.64 (talk) 23:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Re your last point: in my experience (speaking as a Brit) we still are. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 03:46, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I remember being on a long-distance telephone call to an elderly gentleman in London telling him our telephone number. The format of the national dialling code was 0 + first two letters of city name + number. I used the word "nought" and my mother told me not to because it could be misheard as "four." The code (for Oxford) therefore began 0OX2, which became 0092 when all-figure dialling was introduced. This new code was one of only two which was changed again (to 0865) because the post office didn't like numbers beginning 00. 86.157.216.138 (talk) 10:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Makes sense, because they wanted 00 to be available for international direct-dialed calls. 0092 in Britain would now indicate a number in Pakistan. --142.112.221.64 (talk) 17:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Back in the days when architectural and engineering drawings were done by hand, we used Rapidograph pens when drafting in ink, which were numbered in increasing size from 0000 to 4. The 0 series was commonly described as four-aught, three-aught/triple-aught, two-aught/double-aught, or aught. This seems to have been universal in the 1970s and 1980s for this in the southeastern United States. This is the only context in which I've encountered that usage. Acroterion (talk) 17:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• On the other hand, I've seen plenty of TV scenes (but have no real-life experience) where a surgeon calls for some "three-oh silk" thread, obviously meaning size 000. Right, see Surgical suture#Sizes. I would have said that "aught" was completely obsolete in North America today. --142.112.221.64 (talk) 01:10, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

  The .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge is commonly called a "thirty aught six". CodeTalker (talk) 01:40, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, but that's in reference to how 1906 was pronounced in 1906. --142.112.221.64 (talk) 04:31, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Not forgetting the three-oh-three. Also the double-oh guage, for which you might have an oh-six-oh locomotive. Alansplodge (talk) 22:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I heard somewhere recently that James Bond's code number 007 is correctly said as "double-oh seven" because the zeros are actually letters O. But I can't find any corroboration of that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:00, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

You may have seen this claim in our article 00 Agent, where it is made without being cited to a source. However, Chapter 3 of Casino Royale has the title "NUMBER 007". In it, Head of S. describes "the right man" for a job (the destruction of Le Chiffre), saying: "One of the Double O's—I guess 007." In the 1953 Signet paperback edition, the ⟨O⟩ in "Double O's" is clearly distinct from the double ⟨0⟩ in "007".  --Lambiam 10:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC). I have removed this false claim; later novels also use two digits ⟨0⟩ in print.^[1]  --Lambiam 11:05, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The dialling code for Aldershot (originally 0AL2) became 0252. This caused some bemusement at Aldershot barracks as this was the number of the charge sheet filled in by MPs when misbehaviour was alleged. See jankers. 2A00:23D0:637:7101:B830:AFE9:88A6:F6F8 (talk) 10:55, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Just back online, thanks for all the answers (and that English numerals link). I'll try and update the Education article to let the next ESL get the answer right away! 77.147.79.62 (talk) 18:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)