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- In the game of lawn tennis, ‘love’ represents a score of zero.
- E.g., when the game starts with both players at zero, it is called ‘love-all.’
- And when one person scores, it becomes 15 to love.
- There are two theories on why love came to mean zero in tennis.
- Theory 1: It is a corruption of the French word l’oeuf.
- L’oeuf in French means the egg.
- Tennis was invented in 1873/74 in England.
- And according to ‘the egg’ theory, when the game was taken to France, the French used the word l’œuf to mean ‘zero,’ due to 0’s resemblance to an egg.
- And the English people mispronouncing l’œuf as love influenced the change.
- Theory 2: It comes from the players’ love for the sport.
- The idea is that even if a player doesn’t get any points, it doesn’t matter because they are playing for the love of the game rather than to win.
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Image courtesy of Valentin Balan
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