Names for the number 0 in English no authoritative evidence that there has ever been any such word in Scots in the first place. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of the word "love" in English to mean "zero" was to define how a game was to be played, rather than the score in the game itself. Gambling games could be played for stakes (money) or "for love (of the game)", i.e. for zero stakes. The first such recorded usage quoted in the OED was in 1678. The shift in meaning from "zero stakes" to "zero score" is not an enormous conceptual leap, and
Anyone for tennis? Anyone for tennis? The phrase Anyone for tennis? is thought to have originated from George Bernard Shaw's 1914 play "Misalliance", in which Johnny Tarleton asks "Anybody on for a game of tennis?" This phrase is often used to typify a particular genre of drawing room comedy about the leisured upper class. This phrase has been used several times in popular culture, including in the song "Beautiful Girl" in the movie musical "Singin' in the Rain," and as the title of a song by the British blues-rock band Cream. It is also mentioned in the popular 1975 song "Patricia the Stripper"