Joho the Blog
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June 17, 2004
Lavasoft's Ad-aware program is one of many that lacks the extra line of programming code that would change its status report from "One new objects" to "One new object." Ad-aware is excellent and free, so I don't mean to carp. I only raise this because it brought to mind the following question: Why in English is it "zero objects have been found" instead of "zero object has been found"? What makes zero plural? Why can't we have the flexibility accorded to "no" as in "No objects have been found" or "No object has been found"? Equal right(s) for zero! (Need I mention that the rigorous and regular application of the combination of Ad-aware, HijackThis, McAfee, WinPatrol and Spybot is failing to keep my dughter's XP system free of spyware and malware?) Posted
by D. Weinberger at June 17, 2004 08:55 AM
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Comments
Perhaps because while 'one' is clearly the presence of a single item, 'zero' could signify the absence of any number of items. As when the loser of an unscratched scratch ticket complains about the millions it has assuredly cost them--by misplacing one ticket, they have come into possession of zero millions.
Hey, my field is creative writing, not mathematics...
Posted by: steve | June 17, 2004 09:05 AM
FYI - I heard from a not-so-technical friend a pretty good recommendation and purchased Pest Patrol (www.PestPatrol.com) and have avoided a couple of spyware problems for a couple of weeks now. (No, I have absolutely no connection to Pest Patrol)
Posted by: HWheel | June 17, 2004 09:24 AM
If this is a math question, my hope is that, like a singularity or single point of light, there exists one (and only one), correct answer to the question, or the answer to the question lies in a set containing all answers other than a "single correct answer" (a set where the answer isn't represented one, and only one correct answer). However, if this is an philosophical question, then I suspect that there may be not one single answer, that is there may be no (zero) answers or many answers may exist that are equally "true".
Also, my above hopes and suspecions may be deludedly false or represent a complete misunderstanding of the question. I look forward to learning the real answer, that is, 1) if a blog framework is capable of producing a true answer and 2)the truly best answer is one that I'm capable of understanding.
Posted by: One or Zero | June 17, 2004 10:30 AM
>> Why in English is it "zero objects have been found" instead of "zero object has been found"? What makes zero plural?
It's not that zero is plural, zero is nonSingular.
Zero is not many, plural, and it is also not one. Apparently English restricts use of the singular a very small, perhaps unique?, class.
Posted by: Wray Cummings | June 17, 2004 11:17 AM
For some excellent, fascinating, and fun looks at the number zero, I recommend two books I recently read:
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
by Charles Seife, Matt Zimet
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140296476/
The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero
by Robert Kaplan, Ellen Kaplan
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195142373/
Both are quite fun reads. Honestly, I had no idea there was so much to write about nothing.
Posted by: Mike | June 18, 2004 04:38 AM
Actually it is one (1) that is discriminated against. Out of all numbers, it alone is singular. Yes I know that one IS singular, but it still seems so very unfair.
Perhaps as text messaging mangles our grammar, we should also allow "there are one objects" to be acceptable.
Posted by: Larry Borsato | June 18, 2004 07:58 PM
Wow, that's quite a few security programs those malwares are sneaking past. Is she using IE/OE/Outlook?
I used most of that stuff, plus a firewall, and still managed to get hijacked when I was using IE to browse.
Since switching to Firebird/Fox and Eudora (I hear Thunderbird's pretty safe too), I rarely use my firewall...unless I'm going to IRC or use a message program. I haven't P2P'd in a few years. I've never used Bit Torrent, VOIP, or online gaming (we're currently on dialup, so why bother).
Posted by: Sherri | June 21, 2004 01:58 AM
WOW How odd... I found this page after watching Spy Subtract (I have about 5 spyware killer programs on my computer lol) detect "0 suspects" and I was wondering the same thing! So I googled it and this page came up. How strange that you thought of the same thing while using the same kind of program. feel free to talk to me sometime on AIM, my screenname is fuera de c0ntrol.
have a good day,
alisha
Posted by: Alisha | December 20, 2004 04:06 PM
Before get curious about zero in english i got in portuguese, and i found out that in portugal zero uses the plural form, here the singular! That is odd!
Posted by: Kalu | May 7, 2006 01:31 PM
I searched the Google by using keywords like "zero plural"(no double quote) and found ..
"zero - definition of zero by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus ...no - quantifier; used with either mass nouns or plural count nouns for indicating a complete or almost complete lack or zero quantity of; ..."
in the fourth rank of the first Google's page linking to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/zero
Posted by: por | January 27, 2007 04:53 AM