Why Is Zero Plural?

You can't multiply by zero and obtain any result other than zero, it's still just zero.

 

Is that a proper usage of the word "zero"?

We have no items.
We have a zero count.

 

zero bananas

Yes, we have no bananas

we have no bananas today! ​

 

Taking a wild guess.....

A single object is singular.

A plural object is non-singular.

Zero, under this definition, will be a plural quantity.

 

I would assume the grammatical constructs for "zero", "one", and "more than one" evolved long before we actually had numbers to express those ideas. Then, when we invented numbers, we simply inserted the numbers into the existing constructs.

Here's another one you might not have noticed.

It's easy to say "there are fourteen and two-thirds apples in that basket", right? Sounds quite natural.

Now, replace 14 2/3 with 1 2/3.



You probably said "there are one and two-thirds apples", but I suspect were a bit more hesitant.



Now, try 2/3.



You probably couldn't do it -- you had to switch to an entirely different construct: "there is two-thirds of an apple", or maybe "there are two-thirds of an apple", but you almost surely couldn't bring yourself to say "there are two-thirds apples" or "there is two-thirds apple".

 

There are two-thirds of an apple,

there is one-third of an apple,

but yes there are still no bananas.

 

How do you tally no bananas?

 

Re: zero bananas

Didn't you just make my point? Would we say that we have zero bananas?

There are zero loaves of bread, or no loaves of bread? As opposed to, we have a zero count.

 

Re: zero bananas

We could say, we have bananas....NOT.

 

This makes sense: everything that is not singular is by default plural.

 

So the answer is: it's a convention.

 

Zero in the above example is an adjective, not a noun. In English, unlike other languages, adjectives do not change with declension or pleurality of noun.
zero alumni, zero alumnae, etc.
A pleural use of zero as a noun is: How many zeros does 1 trillion dollars have?

 

By your logic "1 trillion" is an adjective here?

 

isn't it?

 

I'm checking to find out.

 

It appears so. If you look up the definition of a number it gives the definition when refering to a number of things as an adjective. Makes sense.