Mark Twain passage of boat, was a measure on the sounding line. Twain is an archaic term for "two", as in "The veil of the temple was rent in twain." The riverboatman's cry was "mark twain" or, more fully, "by the mark twain", meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms]", that is, "The water is deep and it is safe to pass." Twain said that his famous pen name was not entirely his invention. In "Life on the Mississippi", he wrote: Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot
Names for the number 0 in English English speaking countries. However this has not become the universal descriptor because as Douglas Coupland pointed out early in the decade "[Noughties] won't work because in America the word 'nought' is never used for zero, never ever". The American music and lifestyle magazine Wired favoured "Naughties'", which they claim was first proposed by the arts collective Foomedia in 1999. However, the term "Naughty Aughties" was suggested as far back as 1975 by Cecil Adams, in his column The Straight Dope. In scores for sporting events, in particular tennis, association football, the number 0 has the very specialized names "love", and