O My ...

I think I do this when it comes to phone numbers, or when it is obvious that it is a number. Even when I am talking about the year of a vehicle I will say "Is that an o eight". Sorry, if I irritate you.:)

You caught me, yes I do that..But lately I have been trying not, but it still slips out sometimes.. It is strange though, why did people start saying that? Because like you said, we learn in kindergarten that an "O" is a letter and a "0" is a number, why do we call "0" an "O"?????

Oh yes I have done this a few times before, in fact I lie, now I have just sat and thought about it I do it more than a few times. You are right though and I tell it to my kids too, and I have just realised that when I do they look at me gone out and it is because at school they are taught zero and not 0.

i have a real problem with this too
and i also need to learn the words they use in the military to stand for the letters, also
see - i run an internet service - and there are a lot of times when my customers and i need to spell out usernames or passwords over the phone (come to think of it - i have do do this with my on name - first name starts with s, last name starts with f)
anyway - the difference between zero and "oh" is very important - so i'm in the habit of saying zero - even if it is obvious that we are only discussing digits...

I never thought about this before but you are absolutely right. People do mistake an oh for a zero, and I don't know why. 1 and l is also a problem for me when I see it in an email, I am not sure if the letter or number.

You aren't the only one with that pet peeve...lol. (scary)

I do say it when saying the time, or the total sale amount, even a house address- but only if it is a short number. I guess because that isn't a long string of numbers someone is trying to write down? Right now my address is 4 digits long and I say each one individually...and if there was a zero in it, I would say zero not o. So, I do not use it when I am giving a phone number or credit card number- that bugs me.

My other pet peeve is when people are giving me their phone number and they say "five five five- nineteen thirty two". That drives me nuts- not the "32" part so much but so often when they say "nine-teen" I write the 9 then have to go back and put in the 1 because I realize what they've done. Not a huge deal..but that is what pet peeves are,I suppose...those little annoyances.

Your peeve reminded me of one of mine that I haven't yet recorded on this site.

In past centuries, we've always called our years, like for instance 1966 we'd say in words, nineteen sixty six....for 1854 we's say in words, eighteen fifty four.

Why now that we're in the 21st century, do we say, in words for instance, two thousand and eight? Why don't we say twenty O eight?

Sorry I had to say O there instead of nought or zero...but never fear, that won't happen once we reach 2010, which no doubt we'll call two thousand and ten instead of twenty ten.

That is one of my peeves too! I am forever correcting the children and to my shame, I am also always correcting my husband. He is notorious for it.

No, I always use the correct way to express the letter o versus the number zero. I know someone who absolutey will not change from saying o to zero. They think it's a rule enforced on people who have the freedom to say whatever they want.

It drives me crazy. What kind of phone number is 6o7-3o12?
The o doesn't even correspond to the correct number on the phone! The letter 0 should land on zero to be correct.

Whatever. People say whatever they want to. I try not to cringe. It's free expression. I'm sure I have words that make other people cringe.

It is confusing sometimes when people do that. Zero is a distinct word that really identifies a number. But "O" is lots of things, but not a number. And, yes, sometimes I do it, too. There is "Hawaii Five O", for instance. Come to think of it, that could be five Oprahs doing the hoola!