Naught v nought
First published in your newsletter Exclaim!)

'Discussions about coping with climate change have come to nought.' Anything wrong with that? Alas, while the sentence is pretty much true at present, one of the words is wrong; it should be naught.

While both nought and naught refer to zero, zilch, nada - in other words nothing - they are used differently. Nought is used specifically to refer to the numeral zero and is used in arithmetical contexts.

Naught is used in more poetic, non-mathematical contexts, particularly in the phrase come to naught, meaning to result in nothing. Another example is Naught for your comfort, the famous book by Trevor Huddlestone.

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