Nil-ism In America: When You Stare At The Pitch, The Pitch Stares Back
Amid this year's World Cup, American sportscasters have been turning frequently to the term "nil" when talking about scores, using it instead of zero. Nil, though, is a British term — not a soccer term. Katherine Connor Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries for the Oxford University Press, tells Robert Siegel why the word might be gaining currency.