O gauge or 0 gauge?

[daftbovine]

O gauge or 0 gauge? Which one is correct? I was told that it is the latter but I see the former quite often too. The question applies to OO and 00 too. I'd like to get a definitive answer if possible as I am editor of a local model railway newsletter and am trying to brush up on my grammar and punctuation.

[PaulRhB]

Well technically it was Gauge 0, 1, 2, 3 etc but then they muddied the waters with half 0 so the move into letters started. We tend to say 'oh' rather than zero gauge so grammatically O would be correct but historically it started as 0! So really both can be right but it's argued to the nth degree so good luck getting agreement

[Guest]

As above, you'll never get agreement, but I don't say "double zero" so double "Oh" it is for me. Likewise, if I don't say double zero gauge, I'm not likely to say zero gauge. Oh wins again.

[81A Oldoak]

Try sending an email to anyone at the Gauge 0 Guild using O instead of 0 in the address. In fact don't, because no one at the Guild will know you have tried.

[Downendian]

Strange parallel here with blood groups (sorry for going off piste). Blood group O is in normal accepted use, but strictly should be 0.

I won't bore you with the reasons why.

Neil

[unravelled]

My experience says written zero, pronounced oh.

My feeling is that it has only become an issue post computer when 0 and O became differentiated. Many typewriters didn't have a 0 key. Oh was commonly the spoken form of the number.  James Bond was double oh  seven, not zero zero  seven...

My subsidiary question would be  to those working in technical/military areas pre computer, and whether there was a  clear distinction there. Military time, e.g. zero hundred hours is a common example, as is the launch countdown, but how were they written/typed 0 or o?

I'm not familiar with teletypes, but did they differentiate?

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[PaulRhB]

On the railway these days it has to be zero if saying an individual number unless it's time in which case you're allowed to say ten thirty rather than one zero three zero.

Humans will always take shortcuts to make things quicker and easier to say which is why the railway monitors all comms to make sure we don't slip back into shortcuts

So if you type the 'wrong' O then say it's grammatically correct for pronunciation in text and that you always use 0 in technical documents

That should get them spinning

[Guest]

I can't help but think that if I typed OO gauge in a forum post and then got a lecture telling me it should be 00 gauge, that the person lecturing has something of a pedantic tendency. We all know what we mean, so that should suffice.

[BG John]

Seems like a good reason to work in S7, or EM/P4 in 4mm scale .

[bertiedog]

Both are correct!!!! it simply makes no difference these days, and adding in US uses, old references from the 20's etc only muddies the waters, but it started as Zero, nought, not the letter O, and wandered on from there.

 

Stephen

[Kickstart]

So is it a model of the 08 or the O8 that Dapol are now producing ;-)

 

All the best

 

Katy

[RhBBob]

As usual those nice European chappies have come to my aid and my scale/gauge seems to be spelt '0m'  

 

but then there's HOm, HOe, Oe etc.,

 

and of course Odear

 

Perhaps I should change my forum name to 'MischiefBob' ??

[Robert]

Here in Germany, H0 is referred to as Hah-null - H-zero, so I tend to refer to double-o as O-zero.

 

Confused? So am I!

[HSB]

There was a discussion about this on the Gauge 0 Guild forum a few months ago! Personally I will continue to write '0' and pronounce it 'O' the same as I do when giving my phone number or credit card details!

[Focalplane]

Re the Gauge O Guild, I seem to remember a new editor used 0 but was told that was incorrect, should be O.

 

I try to remember to add both as keywords but don't always succeed.

[81A Oldoak]

Enter this into your browser and see what happens:  www.gaugeOguild.com

 

 

 

 

 

[Geoff Endacott]

The problem with half zero is that, mathematically, half zero is also zero.

 

Geoff Endacott

[APOLLO]

Once read in an American large scale garden railroad mag the "smaller" scales were classed as

 

O - Ordinary

 

HO - How ordinary

 

N - Nothing

 

Brit15

[Simond]

There was a discussion about this on the Gauge 0 Guild forum a few months ago! Personally I will continue to write '0' and pronounce it 'O' the same as I do when giving my phone number or credit card details!

I know, I started it.

 

http://www.gauge0guild.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6777

 

Best

Simon

[gismorail]

So in fact it is 'zero gauge' and the new Dapol loco is a 'zero8'

 

Ok sharp exit...........

[Ozexpatriate]

If you look carefully Hornby use 00, not OO on their packaging, but it's subtle.

 

NEM defines it as 0 (zero) and H0 Half-zero.

 

It is Britischers and their Amerikan cousins who like to say 'oh'.  No German would replace a 2, 1, 0 sequence with 'oh'.

[Nearholmer]

Listen to the French; they, like the Germans (important comma that), are very clear.

 

"Le ZERO est l'échelle du 1/43,5." Copied direct from the Cercle du Zero website, capitalisation included.

 

Kevin

[Donw]

The late David Jenkinson would always refer to it as Nought Gauge. As regards the Gazette it is really a matter of type face a lot of railway engines had proper fat zeros  not the rather skinny things we get today. I was happy with it as it was but always knew it was Gauge 0. At the time no one ever commented on it to me.

Don

 

edit  The above would make more sense knowing I was editor at the time. 

[The Johnster]

Well, I think 0, 00, H0, etc should have the 0 as a number, 0, and not as a letter, O, but I have absolutely no objection to anyone who thinks or writes it differently to me, and no real argument with any reason they have for thinking or writing thus.  

 

But tell me I'm wrong and you've got a fight on your hands!