Sorry ... just a couple more:
- The most attractive (but unproven) etymology for "love" as a substitute for zero/naught/nothing is that on the score-board the oblong zero-symbol would resemble an egg, and of course we use Eng. slang "goose-egg" to represent just that idea. "Egg" in French is oef, or "the egg" syntactically, le oef, and with ellision l'oef--hence misconstrued/folk-etymologized as "love" in English. Problem is ... at Roland Garros you'll hear "quinze-ZERO," "trente-ZERO," etc. because the inventors of the sport of (Old Fr.) "Tenez" don't use "love," ironically. (Wouldn't "quinze-AMOUR" be just precious?) It's entirely English usage. My answer (because I haven't seen it anywhere else) is that tennis probably wasn't invented at the Parisian "court" until after the 1066 Norman (French) invasion of England (and even if it were before, the half-barbarian, recently-converted "Northmen" wouldn't have been invited to play anyway). However, once it too crossed the Channel, the game would have been adopted by the English nobility, but who stubbornly spoke Norman French well into Chaucer's time. You get the picture. The "courtly" l'oef, as a little spoof on "zero" the goose-egg, originated in England among the French-speaking aristocracy, but was "anglicized" to love as finally all classes of English society began to speak exclusively English.
- To muddle about further in tennis terminology, here's a little "real" life event. What is "real" tennis? My students and I got the answer while on one of my overseas courses. That particular day included a touristy stop at Hampton Court Palace, Henry VIII's favorite, and famous for, among other things like the World's Oldest Grapevine, that king's indoor tennis court--one of the first. I asked the uniformed attendant what kind of tennis was played there, pausing before getting more specific about nets (or not), racquets yet (or still by "palme"), etc. But he quickly answered with what he presumed would explain it all: "It was real tennis." Nice conversation-stopper, I thought. He could now get along on his rounds. Only later did I discover that he was speaking the anglicized version of Fr. re'all or "royal" tennis--attesting again to ancient roots across the channel. Hahaha on me. It's called Court Tennis in this country, where there are 4 or5 courts scattered about on the model of Henry's. (One of which is in Aiken SC, coincidentally, which my lawyer-son has actually played on.) I won't go into it, but the rules vary from modern tennis, considering you have to take into account balls bouncing off walls and turrets and what not. But that's real tennis for you.
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