A Loyal Reader Writes:
“I heard my Program Director use ‘Oh’ when giving out a phone number.
“I explained, in the best way a 6-time college drop-out can, that ‘Oh’ is a letter, not a number. ‘Zero’ is a number (or lack of), and therefore should be used when giving out a number. Saying ‘Oh’ instead of ‘zero’ is only proper if you like to end sentences with a preposition. Do you know where I’m coming from?
“He responded that Dan O’Day said to use ‘Oh’ not ‘zero’. Knowing that you most certainly do not love your last name so much that you would alter American English to the point of using ‘Oh’ whenever you can, I have to inquire as to your logic behind this, if it is true.
“Please help us resolve this difficult issue.”
My #1 rule of communication is to speak the language of the person to whom I’m speaking.
If I’m in a culture (or in a community) where people tend to say “oh” when referring to the “zero” in a phone number, I’ll certainly say “oh.”
If speaking “correctly” were my primary concern, I would’ve referred to the year 1999 not as “nineteen ninety-nine” but rather as “one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.” That would have been proper, but it would have derailed more conversations than it would’ve facilitated.
There are other reasons that “oh” often (not always) is more effective than “zero” when giving a phone number or address — reasons relating to the human mind’s resorting to “chunking” as a memory aid. “Zero” contains one more syllable than “oh.” Sounds inconsequential, but when stringing together a series of sounds, “oh” is easier than “zero.”
I do agree, however, that a preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.
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Hear, hear Dan. The number for emergency calls here in Australia is “Triple 0” – previously often referred to as “Triple Oh”
However, with the advent if short messaging on cell phones and people getting accustomed to using “oh” as a letter it became apparent that we had to re-educated society to the word “zero”. Some people were dialling “triple oh” and wondering why they were not connecting.
This was a major campaign addressed often on Radio during the past 12 months.
I’m glad to see the trend of dropping phone numbers altogether in ad copy. Web site mentions are much more memorable—-unless they contain something that looks like a phone number!
I am the PD you speak of. I also agree with web over phone. So much more memorable.
Does the loyal reader also advocate “zero” in the station frequency? Should we be “One-zero-four-point-one”? How unnatural is that?
Are there people to actually still use the phone to TALK?
Zero good grief… 😉 Maybe people don’t like zero because of all those syllables, which makes me think we may all be overlooking the humble “nil” or “null”.
I believe ‘zero’ is preferred over ‘oh’..and yes, that might be inconsistant with stating the station’s frequency…one-oh-four point one does sound more natural.
It may not be practical to have a hard and fast ban on phone numbers in copy….but for many local accounts, the phone number is a throw-away. Exception: when you’ve got a ‘custom’ number that is purposely designed to be easy to remember. And of course, for campaigns that ask the listener to respond immediately, the number is very important and must be repeated. Otherwise, getting the client’s name in the copy one more time is worth more than the number.
If you’ve done a good job presenting the client’s message in a favorable light and you’ve ‘sold’ the NAME of the business, then it shouldn’t be rocket science for the listener to FIND the number in the phone book.
It is my personal bias to not use the line “see their ad in the Yellow Pages.’ Why send a potential customer to a place where their competition will offer several places that sell the same stuff?