Names for the number 0 in English Names for the number 0 in English Zero is the usual name for the number 0 in English. In British English "nought" is also used. In American English "naught" is used occasionally for zero, but as with British English, "naught" is more often used as an archaic word for nothing. "Nil", "love", and "duck" are used by different sports for scores of zero. It is quite common in English to describe decades with a plural of the first year of the decade for example "the nineties" which can be written as "the 90s". There was a debate on what to
Zero-sum game Zero-sum game In game theory and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant's gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Thus, cutting a cake, where taking a larger piece reduces the amount of cake available for others, is a zero-sum game if all participants value each unit of cake equally (see marginal utility). In contrast, non-zero-sum describes