Ask a group of people to read aloud their mobile phone numbers or James Bond's code name and you'd be hard pressed to find a zero or nought between them.

'Oh' has become a popular option when saying the number 0.

But as radio producers will attest, a number of passionate people are still fighting the widespread acceptance of the number 'oh'.

Whenever ABC presenters dare spruik the text line with an "oh-four-three-seven..." they will inevitably unleash the SMS fury of linguistic purists, quick to decry the term's use when referring to anything other than a letter.

So is it wrong to say 'oh' instead of 'zero'?

Kate Burridge, a professor of linguistics at Monash University, is pretty relaxed about it.

"Words do shift in their meaning," she told ABC Radio Melbourne's Jacinta Parsons and Sami Shah.

"I think oh has been used for a while now."

Professor Burridge said when it came to language, there was no magic time when misuse became accepted — and it's this transition period when tensions were raised.

"Many of the things that people have complained about in past centuries seem perfectly fine to us now," she said.

"I used to get grumpy letters about people saying zero instead of nought, and now people get grumpy about oh instead of zero, so it's a lovely example of the changing nature of language."

Let's face it, humans are lazy

Professor Burridge said it was common for people to adapt language for speed or convenience.

"We take shortcuts all the time and we do it in everything, not just language," she said.

"Particularly when we are in familiar territory, we know what we're doing, and the articulators are 'gonna' take these shortcuts.

"If you're reeling off your phone number or a postcode or something that you have been doing a lot, then you will shorten it."

She said greetings and leave taking were particularly susceptible to shortening.

"So, 'God be with you' becomes 'bye' over centuries, and 'a good night for you' becomes 'night night'," she said.

Black once meant white

If you want to keep the peace, Professor Burridge recommends sticking to the old form of a word.

"If it's going to cause confusion, or if it's distracting, I sometimes advise students that if something is changing then stick with the old form because you're not likely to get up the noses of our readers that way," she said.

But she has a word of warning for anyone bothered by the growing use of the 'number' oh.

"Words do shift in their meaning and they can shift spectacularly to even become the opposite of what they once meant.

"Black once used to mean white if you go back far enough in time. It's related to bleach and blanch. All those words are related, even bald because bald was a white shiny head.

"They can change spectacularly, and while they're changing, then yes, it's uncomfortable.

"It is the pattern that things get replaced."