The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• "love"="zero"

  (Word Origins)
  
  On its AOL message board, Merriam-Webster Editorial Department wrote: "The notion that the sports term 'love' comes from the French _l'oeuf_ seems to be another popular fallacy; so far, our etymologists have been unable to find any evidence that _oeuf_ was ever used in a 'zero' or 'goose-egg' sense in reference to game scores. A more probable, if less imaginative, explanation can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary, which links this sense of 'love' to the phrase 'for love' (i.e. 'without stakes, for nothing')."
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Word Origins: "love"="zero"', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 3783), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

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