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,
Old English grammar known as "ablaut". In this form of conjugation, the stem of the word changes to indicate the tense. Verbs like this persist in modern English; for example "sing, sang, sung" is a strong verb, as are "swim, swam, swum" and "choose, chose, chosen". The root portion of the word changes rather than its ending. In Old English, there were seven major classes of strong verb; each class has its own pattern of stem changes. Learning these is often a challenge for students of the language, though English speakers may see connections between the old verb classes and their modern forms.