# 3-6 1-0 [sports; saying, reading score]



## Monica238

In sports contexts how do you pronounce 3-6 and 1-0?  "She lost the match 3-6."


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## owlman5

_Three to six _and _One to zero._


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## sound shift

It depends on the sport and on the variety of English.


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## kentix

If it's tennis, it's different than baseball, for instance.


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## rotan

In football (soccer), it's "nil" not "zero"
1-0 -> one-nil
Other numbers are standard English


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## JulianStuart

rotan said:


> In football (soccer), it's "nil" not "zero"
> 1-0 -> one-nil
> Other numbers are standard English


Not in the US   (except in some football/soccer scores by some commentators).


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## rotan

Don't you know football doesn't care about the US?


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## JulianStuart

rotan said:


> Don't you know football doesn't care about the US?


But this is an English forum, not a football forum, so learners need to know


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## rotan

Well you got that right


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## Monica238

kentix said:


> If it's tennis, it's different than baseball, for instance.


Yes, it's about tennis. 


JulianStuart said:


> But this is an English forum, not a football forum, so learners need to know


What do you use to talk tennis, football, soccer, baseball? 😳


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## heypresto

If it was tennis, the zero would be 'love.'


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## Monica238

heypresto said:


> If it was tennis, the zero would be 'love.'


Sorry, what do you mean by "love"?


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## sound shift

Monica238 said:


> Sorry, what do you mean by "love"?


In tennis, "love" means "zero points", "no points".

Fifteen-love
Thirty-love
Forty-love
Game!


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## heypresto

In tennis, the scoring system uses the word 'love' instead of 'zero' or 'nil.'

This site explains the system: https://www.usta.com/en/home/improve/tips-and-instruction/national/tennis-scoring-rules.html


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## Welsh_Sion

'Zero'

And if you score no runs as a batter (the preferred term now, apparently) in cricket then you score 'a duck'. If you are deemed 'out' (and so can no longer bat for your team in that innings) then you are said to be 'dismissed/out for a duck'. (If you are 'out' with the first ball you face, then you are 'out for a golden duck'.)

Score two ducks in the two innings that your team may play, and you will be 'out' for 'a pair'. If you're 'out' twice to the first ball you face each time, then it's 'a king pair'.

Love is 'zero' in tennis as @heypresto has said. If you don't win a game and you lose 6-0, 6-0 (six-love, six-love) this often referred to as 'a double bagel'.

Nil is 'zero' when applied to football (soccer) and both forms of rugby - union and league.

For a number which means 'nothing' it sure has a lot of synonyms in the field of sports!


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## kentix

It's not just that. The way sets are described is said in a specific way in tennis. Most games aren't divided in that way, with individual scores for the parts. Usually the only thing mentioned is the final score.

I mentioned tennis in my first response because those look (sort of) like set scores in tennis.

A women's match might have a score of 6-3 1-6 6-0

Each group is the score of a set and each number is the number of games a player won in that set. Before the hyphen is one player's score for that set and after the hyphen is the other player's score. You have to win 6 games to win a set so one number will always be 6 (sometimes higher when there are ties to break).

Women play up to 3 sets and the first player to win 2 sets is the winner of the match.

So in the U.S., at least, this match

6-3 1-6 6-0

would be described as the winning player winning

"six-three one-six six-love"

with no other words in between.


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## Monica238

kentix said:


> It's not just that. The way sets are described is said in a specific way in tennis. Most games aren't divided in that way, with individual scores for the parts. Usually the only thing mentioned is the final score.
> 
> I mentioned tennis in my first response because those look (sort of) like set scores in tennis.
> 
> A women's match might have a score of 6-3 1-6 6-0
> 
> Each group is the score of a set and each number is the number of games a player won in that set. Before the hyphen is one player's score for that set and after the hyphen is the other player's score. You have to win 6 games to win a set so one number will always be 6 (sometimes higher when there are ties to break).
> 
> Women play up to 3 sets and the first player to win 2 sets is the winner of the match.
> 
> So in the U.S., at least, this match
> 
> 6-3 1-6 6-0
> 
> would be described as the winning player winning
> 
> "six-three one-six six-love"
> 
> with no other words in between.


But why is it pronounced as "love"? Is it only in tennis?


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## Wordy McWordface

I have heard that the term "love" is a corruption of the French word "l'oeuf", meaning 'the egg' - a reference to the egg-like shape of the zero symbol. I don't know whether that's true or not.


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## Welsh_Sion

Same story heard here, @Wordy McWordface.

Similarly for cricket - the 0 represents 'a duck's egg'.


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## Uncle Jack

In tennis, "love" is used for 0 points in a game and for 0 games in a set, but "zero" is used for 0 points in a tie break (at least, that is what I am used to hearing), and "none" or "nothing" is used for sets in a match, so a male player in a grand slam may be losing "two sets to none", for example.


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## Monica238

Uncle Jack said:


> In tennis, "love" is used for 0 points in a game and for 0 games in a set, but "zero" is used for 0 points in a tie break (at least, that is what I am used to hearing), and "none" or "nothing" is used for sets in a match, so a male player in a grand slam may be losing "two sets to none", for example.


I read an article  about the use of "love" in tennis:  "The most commonly believed hypothesis is that it is derived from English speakers mis-hearing the French l'œuf ("the egg"), which was the name for a score of zero used in French because the symbol for a zero used on the scoreboard was an elliptical zero symbol, which visually resembled an egg."

Do I understand correctly, the French used ''l'oeuf" which means "the egg" because zero resembled an egg. But what did the English mishear?


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## heypresto

'L'oeuf' sounds, in English, like 'lerf', which sounds a bit like 'love.' 

Maybe 'love' was pronounced a little differently when this 'mis-hearing' first entered into English tennis terminology? Or maybe the French pronounced 'l'oeuf' a little differently at the time? Either way, this is apparently what happened.


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## Monica238

owlman5 said:


> _Three to six _and _One to zero._



Could you tell me if it's used in football, baseball, etc?


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## Wordy McWordface

In football (that's to say, the international game that you or I would call "football" in our native languages), we'd read 3-6 and 1-0 as _three-six _and _one-nil, _without the _to._

I'm afraid I don't know much about baseball or American football.


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## Welsh_Sion

_Football _(also known as '_soccer_') would not score it that way.

It would be '*three (goals to) six*' and '*one (goal to) nil*'.

Americans can tell you about_ baseball_ and _(American) football._ (Note the latter is a_ different _game to '_soccer'_.)

(Cross post)


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## kentix

In the U.S., the winning score always come first.

"The Bears beat the Packers thirty-six to twenty."

"The Twins squeaked past the White Sox three to two."


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## natkretep

Monica238 said:


> But why is it pronounced as "love"? Is it only in tennis?


It's also used in badminton. So 0-0 is 'love all'. It doesn't jump points though like tennis. There's also 'deuce' when the score is 20-20 (for a 21-point game).


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## Monica238

kentix said:


> In the U.S., the winning score always come first.
> 
> "The Bears beat the Packers thirty-six to twenty."
> 
> "The Twins squeaked past the White Sox three to two."


But which sports was olman5 referring to?


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## rotan

Well not football


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## Welsh_Sion

kentix said:


> In the U.S., the winning score always come first.
> 
> "The Bears beat the Packers thirty-six to twenty."
> 
> "The Twins squeaked past the White Sox three to two."



Even when announced on TV/radio, @kentix? (Maybe it's a US thing.)

It was well-known from the intonation of the Scot James Alexander Gordon when he announced the football scores on radio what the result would be - with the home team always being announced first.

e.g.

- Liverpool one, Everton nil (Emphasis on the 'one', and a down tone on 'nil') ('a home win')

- Manchester City nil, Manchester United nil (Emphasis on 'nil' in both cases, otherwise a level tone throughout) ('a draw')

- Leicester City nil, Leeds United four (Emphasis on 'nil', and an up tone on 'four') ('an away win')


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## kentix

Almost all American sports have a simple scoring system. There are only a few specialized exceptions - tennis and golf spring to mind.


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## Monica238

natkretep said:


> It's also used in badminton. So 0-0 is 'love all'. It doesn't jump points though like tennis. There's also 'deuce' when the score is 20-20 (for a 21-point game).


Is the origin the same? 
"Maybe 'love' was pronounced a little differently when this 'mis-hearing' first entered into English tennis terminology? Or maybe the French pronounced 'l'oeuf' a little differently at the time? Either way, this is apparently what happened."


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## Monica238

Welsh_Sion said:


> _Football _(also known as '_soccer_') would not score it that way.
> 
> It would be '*three (goals to) six*' and '*one (goal to) nil*'.
> 
> Americans can tell you about_ baseball_ and _(American) football._ (Note the latter is a_ different _game to '_soccer'_.)
> 
> (Cross post)



Do BrE speakers use only "nil" and never "zero"?


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## Welsh_Sion

You have also to remember that English 'tennis' itself (TENiss) is an adaptation of the French 'tenez!' (TENay).

And as for football/soccer, I've never heard a fellow Briton use anything but 'nil' in English for a score of 'no goals scored'.


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## rotan

Welsh_Sion said:


> And as for football/soccer, I've never heard a fellow Briton use anything but 'nil' in English for a score of 'no goals scored'.



I haven't even heard it while watching MLS, but maybe there are commentators who actually say "zero" and I was just choosing games they didn't provide commentary for


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## Welsh_Sion

I had to look up what 'MLS' was ... it's not British. (Major League Soccer in the USA, right?)


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## rotan

Exactly
I'm not saying I'm a regular viewer (mostly because of huge time difference), but in the games I actually saw I never heard commentators say "zero", and they were American
So maybe it happens, I can't really deny it not watching every single game


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## kentix

Welsh_Sion said:


> Even when announced on TV/radio


Yes. We don't have this style here:



> - Liverpool one, Everton nil (Emphasis on the 'one', and a down tone on 'nil') ('a home win')



Take football, for instance. In an entire country the size of Europe we have 32 NFL teams. That's at most 16 games on a weekend. (It could be less with bye weeks for some teams.) And those might be spread out (depending on what part of the season it is) over two or three days. So the number of results at any given time could be counted on barely more than two hands. So each one generally gets more individual attention. Each score announced is like a mini-story.

I have listened to the BBC and we just don't have those endlessly long lists of standard-format scores. There is more room for creativity because there are less to get through.

A sports report is a series of things along these lines.

"The Bears beat the Packers thirty-six to twenty with a strong passing game. Oakland topped Kansas City 24 to 17 on the road. Miami demolished Houston by 45 points, 52 to 7. In Cincinnati the Bengals survived a late charge by the Vikings to win 35 to 31. New England had no trouble with the Bills, winning 43 to 16. The Broncos handled the Cowboys 31 to 12 but quarterback Jack Perkins went out with an injury early in the fourth quarter."

If Jack Perkins is their star quarterback that's potentially a more significant story than the fact that they won. 

So you see, the winning team almost always comes first.


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## Wordy McWordface

kentix said:


> "The Bears beat the Packers thirty-six to twenty with a strong passing game."


As the OP's question was about losing, could you also swap it round and say "The Packers lost to the Bears twenty to thirty-six"?


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## kentix

I can't think of a situation where announcers ever put the losing score first.

They might say something like "the heavily-favored Green Bay Packers lost to the lowly New Orleans Saints in a final score of 35 to 10." They told you who lost so you know the Packers were the ones with 10, even though they were mentioned first in the sentence. Like I said, it's a bit of storytelling, not a standard format (except winning score first).


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## rotan

A bit off-topic, but it's actually quite common in Polish
Whoever is mentioned first, their score is also mentioned first
We don't say "Barcelona lost 3-0 to Bayern Munich" (well, in everyday speech people do that, but it doesn't happen e.g on TV, it will always be 0-3 on TV)
I noticed that when it's done, it's mostly when the losing teams were the favorites, or when their defeat is humiliating, or has negative consequences (e.g elimination from tournament)


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## kentix

0-3

That would be a very odd score in a spoken American context.

You might possibly find it in a summary page, with labeled columns, full of dozens of scores from a season.

_It is_ used when talking about individual teams.

If a team loses their first three games of the season, an announcer might say the team is "oh and three".

"The Bengals have started off the season oh and three."

Their record is 0-3.


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## rotan

Yea I know they wouldn't say "nil-three", and say "three-nil" instead (at least I have never heard it the first way)
That's probably why it usually goes as mentioned by Welsh_Sion when the hosts are losing (Barcelona nil, Bayern three)
But it's common in Polish even during the game, "zero-trzy"(0-3) is no different to "trzy-zero"(3-0),; the only condition is mentioning the losing team first


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## kentix

I don't follow soccer so I don't know what MLS announcers say, but no other American sport, certainly not one born in America, (commonly) uses nil. It sounds like an affectation relative to the rest of the sports world here.

It's an interesting question. Is nil an integral part of soccer, or is it simply an integral part of UK English that people are imitating?


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## heypresto

Other than in football and other games, the only place I can think of in which 'nil' is used is in hospitals when a patient is not to be given any food or drink - 'nil by mouth.' I don't know if this is also used in American hospitals?

Nursing Times: Nil by mouth: best practice and patient education | Nursing Times


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## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> I don't follow soccer so I don't know what MLS announcers say, but no other American sport, certainly not one born in America, (commonly) uses nil. It sounds like an affectation relative to the rest of the sports world here.
> 
> It's an interesting question. Is nil an integral part of soccer, or is it simply an integral part of UK English that people are imitating?


It's a mixed bag for AE commentators: some use nil, some eschew the terminology used by the rest of the world and use AE terms like "out of bounds".  I've not heard it that much, but most of the games I watch are Premier league and have British commentators, so it's all good 

Hearing a football score reported as one-nothing or one-zero sounds weird, a bit like if the UK started playing baseball and commentators used local words (a rounder instead of a home run, for example), rather than the AE ones.


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## kentix

The Spanish word for home run is basically a Spanish-adapted phonetic imitation of home run in English, as are many other Spanish baseball terms. (Adaptations of the respective English words. Including the name for baseball, which I won't spell in English Only. )

In case others are unaware, baseball is very, very big in some Spanish-speaking countries


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## rotan

The only football scenario I can think of, where someone says "zero" instead of "nil", is when the commentator providing game analysis is not from England (e.g foreign ex-football player, though if he played in England, he would probably be expected to know it)
Never witnessed that though


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## Uncle Jack

"Nothing", "zero" and "none" aren't entirely unknown when discussing football (soccer) scores in Britain - we discuss them a great deal and it is nice to have a little variation - but I think "nil" is probably used well over 95% of the time.

In formal listings of scores, the home team is always named first, and we sometimes do this in ordinary conversation. "What was the score?" might be answered "one two", for example, this being the quickest way of conveying all the information (we usually assume both speakers know who both of the teams were and which one was the home side). In almost any other situation in ordinary conversation, the higher score comes first: "We lost two one" or "Spurs won two one" or "Two one to City", for example.


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## kentix

In a general listing of games here, I think the home team is generally listed second. And that's also true for sure on the scoreboard in baseball, because the game is a series of turns (like cricket innings) and the home team always has the last opportunity to score runs.

But it has no general relevance in announcing scores. The teams have to be named.

"What was the score of the Bengals-Giants game?"
"Thirty-five to nothing. Giants."


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## Bluedawe

Monica238 said:


> In sports contexts how do you pronounce 3-6 and 1-0?  "She lost the match 3-6."


Here in Australia, radio and TV announcers would say "three six" for "3-6", and "one nil" for "1-0", except for tennis, which uses 'love' (l'oeuf') for nil.

A 'duck' meaning 'nil' in cricket (a duck's egg) is not normally used for formal scoring. A journalist might write, 'He bowled Bradman for a duck', meaning that the nation's premier cricketer was dismissed (out) without scoring a single run. That would be news, and it would invoke more colourful language, as sporting journalism is wont.

When one-day cricket was introduced, and a batsman dismissed with a score of nil, a laughing cartoon duck was shown on the TV screen as he walked away from the pitch.


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## Welsh_Sion

When one-day cricket was introduced, and a batsman dismissed with a score of nil, a laughing cartoon duck was shown on the TV screen as he walked away from the pitch.

________

Was it not a _crying_ duck, @Bluedawe? (Daddles by name). That would make better sense ...

I guess it's on overtime at the moment during the current Ashes series as you wallop the Poms!


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## Bluedawe

Gosh, my memory may be at fault, but my memory, however shaky, says that the duck was laughing, in a wounding and derisive manner, at the batsman's misfortune. Let's blame the Packer cartoonist for sloppy, equivocal draftspersonship.


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## Welsh_Sion

Bring back Daddles: the hidden victim of Test cricket's broadcast wars

I didn't realise the poor little creature had been put down, though.

(There are videos on youtube).


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## Pedro y La Torre

JulianStuart said:


> Not in the US   (except in some football/soccer scores by some commentators).


I watched American commentators the other day and they said "one-nil". I think most US soccer people use the standard terms employed elsewhere in the English-speaking world. And the same is true in reverse, for instance, I've never heard British NFL commentators refer to "draws" and so on.


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