This week I have a quick and dirty tip about the phrase 0%.

A meaty middle about prefixes and suffixes, and a tidbit about mallopropisms such as

calling something a marsh pit instead of a marsh pit.

And now a quick and dirty tip about 0%.

Your dealerships and credit card companies like to advertise 0% interest, which is understandable

enough, but mathematically a bit odd.

It makes you wonder whether marketers are uncomfortable with an ad that proclaims no interest.

The word percent is a 16th century invention, from the Latin words per and centum, or

100.

In the UK it's usually written per cent two words, while Americans in the last few decades

have shifted to the closed up percent one word.

Either way, it still means per 100.

That's useful for expressing your relationship in a standardized way, but 0 per 100 is

just a long way of saying 0.

There's nothing wrong with 0% interest, but careful writers don't make readers do a

unnecessary math.

0 interest or no interest are clear ways to get the idea across.

If you must include the 0, style guides offer conflicting advice.

0 is normally written out as a word, but numbers with percentages are written as numerals.

In the wild, 0% with the numerals slightly leads 0% with 0 written out as a word.

That's according to Google hits, but news sites are more than twice as likely to write

out the word 0.

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