Names for the number 0 in English a formal reading of a team's scoresheet. There is no definitive origin for the tennis score name for 0, "love". It firstly occurred in English, is of comparatively recent origin, and is not used in other languages. The most commonly believed hypothesis is that it is derived from English speakers mis-hearing the French "l'œuf", "the egg", which was the name for a score of zero used in French, because the symbol for a zero used on the scoreboard was an elliptical zero symbol, which visually resembled an egg. There is tangential support for this in the use of "duck" as
Names for the number 0 in English the name for a score of zero by a batsman in cricket, which name derives from the full name "the duck's egg" for that score. The following cricketer's rhyme illustrates this: A name related to the "duck egg" in cricket is the "goose egg" in baseball, a name whose origin is a description in "The New York Times" of 1886 where the journalist states that "the New York players presented the Boston men with nine unpalatable goose eggs", i.e. nine scores of zero. However, the "l'oeuf" hypothesis has several problems, not the least of which is that in court tennis