This reminds me of arguments about male -> female and man -> woman (and human etc). Without offending anyone's delicate sensibilities - you may note that there

This reminds me of arguments about male -> female and man -> woman (and human etc). Without offending anyone's delicate sensibilities - you may note that there is a short version and long version of those words, suggesting that the longer version is derivative of the short version. However, when you examine the origin of the words, that is not the derivation. The derivation and path to English is quite complicated. You may feel a sense of righteous indignation or righteous repudiation on this topic. I would gently suggest deferring that feeling because I think the story is very interesting to follow. That is not the end of the story though. The reason those pairs of words stuck around is almost certainly because it makes a consistent mental picture. Bringing it back to the topic at hand - "Why we use 0" - because it works. There are many times when it has been evaluated, and at least to the people who design languages, it is more mentally appealing. https://www.etymologynerd.com/blog/man-vs-woman https://www.etymologynerd.com/blog/man-vs-woman https://medium.com/interesting-histories/interesting-histories-female-male-woman-man-fd8f436a554c https://medium.com/interesting-histories/interesting-histori...