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The endpoint of my “au-” excursion is a word that can mean anything and it can mean nothing, which sounds like something Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau might say.
The word is “aught,” which can be “anything whatever” (as in “for aught I know”) or “a zero.”
The zero connection came from the faulty separation of “a naught” into “an aught.” “Naught” is a spelling variation of the first zero in this family, “nought.”
By the way, the adjective “naughty,” also part of this family, used to mean “wicked; bad; evil.” Then it became not behaving properly, especially as applied to children.
The...
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