_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Why is zero plural? (2024)
kgeist wrote 13 min ago:
Russian has singular, plural and paucal (reserved for small numbers:
2-4). Interestingly, zero is plural, not paucal:
1 kot "1 cat"
3 kota "3 cats"
but:
5 kotov "5 cats"
0 kotov "0 cats"
inopinatus wrote 1 hour 57 min ago:
Apropos of which I learned today that some languages have not merely a
plural, but a whole complex of representations for cardinality,
including rather more of the counting values than I expected, and
variations for uncertainty and optionality (some might say,
superposition).
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number#Types_of_numb...
OJFord wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
More interesting is to compare languages. Other than native English, I
only know Hindi (plural zero) and French (singular zero).
I wonder what and why the divide is, perhaps especially when among
these three at least I believe zero has a common conceptual origin in
al-KhvÄrizmÄ« (post Roman).
sedatk wrote 51 min ago:
In Turkish, numbers donât affect plurality: 0 apple, 1 apple, 2
apple. But you still say âI ate all the applesâ in plural.
makeitdouble wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
To nitpick, French uses both [1] On the more general point, as I
understand it comes down to what the speakers expect for the
quantity. If it is generally expected to be plural, zero will
probably be plural as well, if singular is more usual zero will
follow.
URI [1]: https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/guide/accord-du-nom-apres-...
whycome wrote 2 hours 0 min ago:
You...want to know how zero is divided?
dylan604 wrote 7 min ago:
Everyone complains about not dividing by zero, but just multiply 0
by the inverse and everything is good.
croes wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
Because zero is not singular.
If you take singular as equal to 1 and plural as the opposite of
singular itâs obvious
xdennis wrote 2 hours 26 min ago:
Because speakers of English arrived at the arbitrary decision that it
is.
Whenever you're faced with the question: "why is x y?", you should ask
yourself "is x y?". In this case, zero is plural... in English. But not
in all languages! (I think in Arabic zero is singular.)
You can read about plural rules in different languages here[1]. For
example some languages have three numbers: singular, dual, and plural.
This is what Proto Indo European had and some descendants still do.
Have you ever found it weird how "pants" or "glasses" are kinda plural
but also kinda singular?
An interesting table to look at is here[2]. It compares all the rules
in various languages for how to form cardinals. For example, English
has two numbers: singular and plural and two rules to determine it: `n
== 1`, `n != 1`.
My language, Romanian, also has only singular and plural, but we have
three different categories: singular, plural without "of", plural with
"of": `n == 1`, `n != 1 && n % 100 == 1..19`, `...the remaining
cases...`. So we say "3319 horses", but "3320 of horses". It's very
weird, but that's how languages work.
[1]
URI [1]: https://cldr.unicode.org/index/cldr-spec/plural-rules
URI [2]: https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/46/supplemental/language_p...
mayd wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
The obvious answer is: because zero is not one. Singular means one.
Plural means not one.
delibes wrote 2 hours 57 min ago:
There is no spoon
mayd wrote 2 hours 28 min ago:
"I have no spoon." Correct in a situation where exactly one spoon is
expected.
"There are no spoons here." Correct in a situation where there could
be zero, one or more spoons.
tsimionescu wrote 1 hour 0 min ago:
There is no spoon in this room. Equivalent to "There are no spoons
in this room".
thayne wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
None of the answers give a really satisfactory answer for the
underlying reason.
I have a theory, although I don't have any evidence. Zero is
arelatively recent concept, and probably became part of the language
after the rules for pluralization were well established. So when zero
came into use it was used similar to negating a plural, like "no
widgets" or "not any widgets", so the plural was used. Or maybe it felt
unnatural to use singular with a number other than one.
egypturnash wrote 2 hours 34 min ago:
Wikipedia tells me that the first known usage of "zero" in English
was 1598, certainly well after the rules for plurals were set.
Wikipedia also tells me that people started speaking what we now call
Old English around 450, and also tells me that there were examples of
something close to the idea of "zero" going back as far as 1770BC,
although the usual history of "zero" in English just goes back to
borrowing it from Sanskrit, where it might have first appeared as
early as ~300±80 but definitely appeared in 458.
thayne wrote 2 hours 12 min ago:
> there were examples of something close to the idea of "zero"
going back as far as 1770BC
Ah, yes, I was thinking of in Europe, and as a number, but I failed
to specify that.
egypturnash wrote 1 hour 10 min ago:
I suspected as much, but felt like being pedantic. :)
ks2048 wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
The answer says zero is treated as "plural" because we say "0 books".
Interestingly, we can say either:
1. "There are no books on this subject"
2. "There is no book on this subject"
whycome wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
French, which treats zero as a singular I believe has a weird way of
saying "no one"
Personne on its own means ''no one'', but une personne means a
person.
bee_rider wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
I was thinking of this too, oddly, also examples around books.
I vaguely feel like âno bookâ could also be parsed as⦠not one
book, maybe? Like weâre saying there isnât even one book on the
subject. Maybe?
I dunno. The scenario that popped into my head was: what if you had a
bookshop, where the shopkeeper would sometimes pick out books for
you. If they said âI have no books for you today,â Iâd imagine
that they just generally didnât find any books for you. Meanwhile
if they said âI have no book for you today,â I guess Iâd expect
that you are waiting for a particular book, and it didnât come in
today. Somehow, there is a difference between the absence of a book
and the absence of any books, even though in fact there are zero
books in either case.
ks2048 wrote 1 hour 18 min ago:
Yes, I think (2) is sort of like saying "not even 1" and more
likely a response to someone saying there is a book, whereas (1) is
a more common phrasing and is just saying how many books there are.
inopinatus wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
I use Xero's books.
thehappypm wrote 2 hours 29 min ago:
Zenoâs book keeps eluding me, I keep getting halfway closer to
finishing it
Terr_ wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
I think it extends from whatever rules govern the much-more-influential
word "No", particularly for items which aren't normally capped at 1.
Notice how these are all plural, and in each case "no" could be
substituted with "zero":
* "My shelf contains no books."
* "Snails have no legs."
* "What if there were no stars in the sky?"
You can't simply replace those examples with a singular noun: You're
either forced to refactor the grammar or you end up with something that
sounds weird/archaic. Ex:
* "My shelf contains no book." [Weird/archaic]
* "My shelf does not contain a book. [Refactored]
bee_rider wrote 2 hours 18 min ago:
âMy shelf contains no bookâ almost wants to become âmy shelf
contains no such book!â to my eye. Like the book is cursed or
forbidden, haha.
twiceaday wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
I have no idea what you are talking about. /s
inopinatus wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
[A lesser light asks Ummon⫽
What are the activities of a sramana>⫽
Ummon answers⫽
I have not the slightest ideaâ⫽
The dim light then says⫽
Why havenât you any idea>⫽
Ummon replies⫽
I just want to keep my no-idea]
â
Terr_ wrote 33 min ago:
I'm not seeing a "zero" in there that would allow us to test if it
can be replaced with "no."
I would not expect that no->zero is, er, grammatically symmetric to
zero->no.
inopinatus wrote 15 min ago:
空
9rx wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
> You can't naively rewrite those examples with a singular
"What if there was no star in the sky?" does not sound particularly
weird, and we can find instances of people using that exact phrase.
If we focus on the key aspect of that statement, "no star in the sky"
appears to be commonly used.
bee_rider wrote 2 hours 8 min ago:
It is possible Iâve made a completely imaginary link, but âno
star in the skyâ sounds slightly odd but in a poetic way. In
particular âno starâ seems pretty close to ânot a star.â I
mean, zero stars is technically zero stars.
But if someone says âThere was no star in the sky,â I parse
that as something like: An astonishingly dark night, I searched the
sky quite carefully and found not even one star.
Meanwhile I parse âno stars in the skyâ as: a very dark night,
I didnât see any stars.
Of course really, it is always a matter of degree technically,
right? The stars are always there. They are just sometimes
attenuated to the point where your eye doesnât detect them.
Terr_ wrote 2 hours 30 min ago:
> "What if there was no star in the sky?" does not sound
particularly weird
I disagree: The most-charitable scenario I can think of is that
someone has context-shifted from regular "stars" to "our sun, Sol,
which is technically a star even though we typically consider it
separate from the rest."
In other words, it involves a situation where someone is assuming
the amount is capped at 1. (Yes, I know binary stars exist.)
Compare:
* "What if there was no star for Earth to orbit?" [Works because =1
is the normal assumption in this context]
* "What if there was no star in the night sky?" [This is weird.]
* "What if there was no constellation?" [This is also weird.]
9rx wrote 2 hours 23 min ago:
> I disagree
With what? English is defined by use, and we can find untold
examples of "No star in the sky."
Terr_ wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
> we can find untold examples
"All birds have eyes" != "All things that have eyes are birds."
My hypothesis is that wherever we speak about "zero" and some
quantity, it seems like we can substitute "no", and the
pluralization rules we'd use for "no" are being inherited.
In contrast, it sounds like you're going the opposite
direction, starting with sentences that contain "no" where we
cannot drop-in "zero". For example, "No star in the sky is
green" cannot become "Zero star in the sky is green."
9rx wrote 1 hour 30 min ago:
> If I say all rodents are mammals, you can't disprove that
just by pointing out the existence of dogs and cats.
Without a full understanding of the intent and background
behind that statement that is not clear. It might be
disprovable under some circumstances. If we take it to the
logical extreme, the words absolutely could be defined such
that it is disprovable, so it obviously could be.
Is that likely? In this case, probably not, but it becomes
more likely when there is more fractured use. Consider tech
jargon. The marjory of the discussions on HN are parties
talking past each other because they came with different
understandings of what words/phrases mean.
> "No star in the sky is green"
I wrote "No star in the sky" to try and steer us away from
different contexts. While I acknowledge that such usage also
exists, that is outside of what I was trying to refer to and
I think you will agree that in your interpretation that usage
is not in line with what we are talking about.
Such is the downfall of languages made up on the spot as they
are used. All you can do is try and convey something to the
recipient, and sometimes you'll fail. This ended up being a
great example of exactly what we're talking about!
mayd wrote 2 hours 39 min ago:
This example does sound wrong to a native English speaker.
It contains a subjunctive mood construct and the correct version
would be:
"What if there were no stars in the sky?"
tsimionescu wrote 1 hour 4 min ago:
"What if there were no star in the sky?" also works even if you
want to use the subjunctive.
Note that not all native speakers of English use or prefer this
type of construction. Also, this use of "were" instead of "was"
is sometimes now called irrealis and considered separate from the
subjunctive (which is then used to refer only to constructions
like "it's important that you be here early tomorrow").
gerdesj wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
This looks like proof by assertion (and by logical extension -
bollocks!):
"That is just how the language works. All numbers except exactly 1 are
plural. Note that -1 can also be singular, but that depends on the
context and dialect."
Three zeros and zero threes. It is a linguistic nicety/convention
which is an idiom. The second example I give of "zero threes" does not
imply that three is plural. If anything it merely implies belonging or
associativity in a linguistic sense and certainly not a maths sense.
The notion of plural is a linguistic thing and might have a maths side
line but I am not familiar with it. The assertion that all numbers
(what does that even mean?) are plural except 1 (which one) is of
course bollocks.
Linguistic tautology is not mathematics. That way lies madness.
Is this a Mathy April fool/fish thing?
joe_the_user wrote 1 hour 9 min ago:
I find your tone excessive here and expect better from hn. It's just
a question and a semi-interesting one at that.
mcphage wrote 1 hour 43 min ago:
> This looks like proof by assertion
Itâs not a proof at all, by anything. Itâs a description of the
singular / plural distinction in English.
> Linguistic tautology is not mathematics. That way lies madness.
Singular vs. plural is not a mathematical fact, itâs a linguistic
fact. Iâm sorry you consider that bollocks.
rerdavies wrote 2 hours 51 min ago:
I rather like Greek for having a dual form as well as a singular and
plural form. (Translators made me add dual-form messages as well as
singular and plural form messages).
cyberax wrote 2 hours 18 min ago:
Slovenian has four plural forms and Arabic has _six_. Here's a nice
list with details and rules:
URI [1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Plur...
dhosek wrote 1 hour 51 min ago:
Looking at that page, Iâm not buying the claims. Iâm not an
expert on Slovene, but my understanding is that it only has
singular, dual and plural and not the 3â4 special case (which
seems to have been confused with other Slavic languages like
Czech and Slovak). I donât think their dual rule is correct for
Slovene either.
Iâm surprised about the higher in the conversation comment
about Greek as the dual exists in Modern Greek only as a
grammatical feature of the written form of the word for âtwoâ
and is rare in classical Greek.
david_allison wrote 1 hour 21 min ago:
From the underlying data:
* 1 dan
* 2 dneva
* 3 dnevi
* 5 dni
URI [1]: https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/supplementa...
cyberax wrote 1 hour 36 min ago:
Having three plural forms for Slavic languages is typical, e.g.
Ukrainian and Russian have them. Roughly speaking, one form for
numerals ending with "1", a different form for numerals ending
in "2", "3", "4", and the third form for the rest of them
(simplifying a bit).
Slovenian appears to have a special word form for numerals
ending in "2". Looks like it's a remnant of the dual number
that existed in early Slavic languages: [1] And it is indeed
unusual!
URI [1]: https://study.2tm.eu/blogs/the-dual-number-in-the-slov...
plorkyeran wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
This is a question about the English language from someone learning
the language, not a math question.
hyrix wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
The answer is obviously because programmers want to be able to write
fâ{n} result{âsâ if n == 1 else ââ}â
isodev wrote 30 min ago:
Must be the same programmers that make it impossible for me to sign
into places with all the diacritics in my name.
thfuran wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
Then they had best steer well clear of Poland.
remram wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
> f"{n} result{'s' if n == 1 else ''}"
n>1 is even shorter than n!=1
(also you wrote == instead of != your code is backwards)
antiframe wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
But the whole point is that "0 result" is not correct but "0
results" is.
shkkmo wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
> The second example I give of "zero threes" does not imply that
three is plural. If anything it merely implies belonging or
associativity in a linguistic sense and certainly not a maths sense.
It absolutely does denote plurality. "0 threes" uses "three" in the
plural form and "1 three" uses "three" in a singular form.
Thus is not a question about math, but about linguistics.
thrance wrote 4 hours 6 min ago:
In French, the official rule from our (way too expensive) Académie
Française is, that it's plural if you have at least x of it, where
|x|â¥2.
tsimionescu wrote 56 min ago:
Would anyone, even a member of the Academy, write "il y a 1.33 femme
pour chaque homme"?
JadeNB wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
What would it mean for x to be negative, if x is how many of
something you have?
post-it wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
You can have negative dollars.
readthenotes1 wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
Funny that 1 litre is singular but 1.0 lires is plural even though 1.0
is more precisely singular than 1.
IOW, English is screwy
croes wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
Itâs the same in German.
Not for liter because the German Liter is also its plural form.
stephen_g wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
I might just take it that the special case is more for the word
'one', not the value of one.
Or perhaps more for one of a discreet object, where the litre is
considered as a single thing but 1.0 is implying a continuous
measurement so it changes how we think of it?
gerdesj wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
"IOW, English is screwy"
OK, but what on earth is a lires? Speling?
If you are going to take the piss, please do it with some panache and
deliver a bit of bite. Your comment needs a bit more thought and
effort to deliver anything like a sucker punch.
1.0 indicates that a measurement has been made within a range.
That's significant figures for the
mathematicians/engineers/scientists. 1.0 and 1 are very different
things but plurality is not an important concept that I know of.
Yes, English is nobs on daft but so are all other languages. All
languages have idiosyncratic idioms (idia) and other daftness (when
seen from the outside).
alt187 wrote 2 hours 49 min ago:
Spelling.
cies wrote 3 hours 53 min ago:
I disagree 1.0 is more precise one than 1.
Both in speaking language, and in quite some programming languages
"1" is assumed to be an integer, and "1.0" is assumed to be a number
with one decimal (something akin to a float). And I'd say integer "1"
is the most precise type of one.
If we are rounding numbers you are right though...
round_to_int(0.5000000 to 1.499999) -> 1
round_to_one_decimal(0.9500000 to 1.049999) -> 1.0
Terr_ wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
> I disagree 1.0 is more precise one than 1.
It depends on the context/subtext: Is the other person trying to
communicate something extra by adding the .0 portion?
Some are, some aren't. A programmer might use it to distinguish a
data-type even though they are otherwise equal, an engineer might
use it for significant-figures, etc.
d99kris wrote 3 hours 58 min ago:
If you write it out as "one litre" vs. "one point zero litres" it
becomes a little bit more consistent though.
DIR <- back to front page