Zero, I believe.
I just tried googling it and got references both to its being a zero, and to its being a letter (though not generally an American English letter.) So my confusion may be due to its being used both ways; which, if true, means it’s not useful to distinguish the two.
Apparently, it’s commonly used for a zero in engineering, scientific, and computer programming contexts, specifically to avoid confusion with the letter O.
How about the context of model numbers or are-you-a-human tests?
A complete lack of consistency, I would imagine. If the people creating the “are you a human?” tests are competent, they’d avoid using O and 0 for that very reason.
But further down
The initialism has jokingly been said to stand for “Kill Mother-Fucking Depeche Mode”, coined by the band on their first U.S. tour and used as recently as Kunst
I couldn’t have told you what it actually stood for, but my group of friends always went with the Depeche Mode joke.
Just saw a newish BMW M5 with plate M5RCY. So a ref to the car model and to “mercy”. Or at least that’s how I decoded it.
I wonder which usage of “mercy” they meant?
I’m in Nashville right now so something evangelical is much more likely than had I seen the same plate at home in Miami. Or something like “Mercy sakes! This is one fast car! Wow!”
Is there more than this one?
I have no idea what that’s a picture of.
The dress & hair looks like a teen or early 20s hearthrob from ~1975. After that I got nuthin.
It’s John Stamos, 1990s vintage, from when he was in the sitcom “Full House.”
Apparently “Have Mercy!” was his character’s catchphrase.
kenobi_65 & thorny locust, et alia: as a memory jogger,
I have deduced that the slash in the Ø is meant to represent the slanted line in the Z in the word ZERO.
QED
Which may be useful if whoever chose the slash is using that convention, and not the one in which it indicates pronunciation of a letter.
The few fonts I’ve seen (on computer screens, anyway) that do this tend to use a dot, not a slash, in the zero, because of this confusion.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and punch cards were used to program computers I filled out many a coding sheet. Because zeroes were much more common than Os in BAL, it was the latter that got the slashes.
KMFMS:
OH PATTY. Reminds me of a good friend, Patti R.
RYEZUP: you’ve got to RISE UP!
I wonder if that refers to politics, or whiskey?
True. It might.
Either way
REPRESENT!!