Names for the number 0 in English call the first decade of the 21st century, as "00s" is not usually pronounced as a word. Apart from side stepping the issue and calling the decade the "two-thousands" (2000s) there is no agreed wording, although in Britain and some other countries "noughties" was also used. There is a need to maintain an explicit distinction between digit zero and letter O, which, because they are both usually represented graphically in English orthography (and indeed most orthographies using Latin script and Arabic numerals) with a simple circle or oval, have a centuries-long history of being frequently conflated. However, in spoken English,
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