Guitar nomenclature - 000 not OOO
 

OK... I'm being a Grammar Cop here!

So when describing a guitar such as Martin 000-18 ...

I believe the correct way is 000 as in number -- Zero Zero Zero ..

I know some call it Triple 0 but it is a number... 0...
Not OOO as in Letter O.

Right?

:hmm:

I think because folks tend to say triple O as in Oh that it is easy to think of it as the letter O rather than the triple aught as in 0. Hey, as long as it is a great guitar, I can live with both. :)

Thanks for the reminder.

Best,
Jayne

Triple 'aught, as in buckshot or fishhooks. 000 not OOO.

Other manufacturers use O though. Larrivee for example. My parlor is an O-01 not an 0-01, and their 00 size guitar is a OO.

In the old days they had these things called Typewriters. Typewriters did not have a 0 key, you had to use a capitol o instead, so 40 years ago their really wasn't a real difference between an O and a 0.

Dang, I should have known when I got that nice little Martin 000-16 SGT last month, there would be repercussions! :wild:

I thought
 

I thought it was short for "OOO...that one!" :lol:

I don't really sweat it. Lots of guitar builders say OOO instead of 000. In fact, some even use both terms interchangeably on the same page (e.g., Breedlove and Goodall and Recording King).

Besides, "triple zero" doesn't trip off the tongue as easily :)

National uses the letter "O" as in its Style O.

What slays me is when someone gets deeply offended when someone mistakenly uses OOO instead of 000. It's as if a Cardinal Sin has been broken.

No, it's not a sin. Martin had sizes strangely starting with a size 2 (smallest), then 1, then 0, 00 and 000 (largest - from about 1902 until 1931!

I call 'em double or treble "O's".

Yes National AND Gibson had style "O"s.

The only thing that irritates me is calling a Gibson Jumbo style a dreadnought, or using the term "slopes".

Agreed, I d0nt see the need t0 p0int this 0ut.

Yep, in the olden days, before the advent of dreadnought or D-sized bodies, Martin used a series of numerals to designate the body shapes of their guitars, with 5 being the smallest, 4 the next smallest and so on. 000-sized guitars were the largest body shape that Martin offered until the dreadnoughts came along.

All I know is that when I'm gassing google doesn't mind if its ohs or zeros

More importantly, do you spell dreadnaught or dreadnought...?

My Martin jumb0 is actually a 0o0o size or should that be oh oh oh oh, anyway. it's not a drednort.