Why is tennis scoring so weird?
Dear Cecil: I can’t for the life of me figure out why tennis scoring is so screwed up. First you get fifteen, then thirty, and just when you think there’s a pattern developing, the next point is called forty. I’ve been asking all the “experts,” but they all just shrug and mumble. What do you say, Cecil? — Mary C., Phoenix Cecil replies: There’s a reason for everything, my dear–not necessarily a good reason, but a reason just the same. Tennis scoring has its origin in medieval numerology. The number 60 was considered to be a “good” or “complete” number back then, in about the same way you’d consider 100 to be a nice round figure today. The medieval version of tennis, therefore, was based on 60–the four points when 15, 30, 45 (which we abbreviate to 40) and 60, or game. There’s a common misconception that the equally puzzling “love,” or zero, derives from the French l’oeuf, “egg,” or, by extension, goose-egg or zero. Actually, it comes from the idea of playing for love, rather than mon
