Randall, Homer Glen, ILSubj: What’s love got to do with it?
There’s something I’ve always wanted to know. Why is a score of zero in tennis called "love"?
Like many things in life, you can blame the French for this one. The practice dates back to the 13th century when the fledging racket sport was sweeping the French countryside from Marseille to Calais. Players and spectators at the time noticed that a zero resembled an egg, so they began referring to it in their native dialect as “l’oeuf.” The word soon caught on and when tennis was introduced to the U.S. several hundred years later Americans misheard the term as “love.” This corrupted word has been an essential part of the game’s lexicon ever since.
