Do you say “aught” or “naught” for 1/0 2/0 3/0 4/0 wires?

 

It wouldn't be naught. It would be aught.

Not to get involved in a major discussion about what's correct.......
Those are old English words and are technically not correct but aught has been used a long time as a reference to 0. So you say "aught".

 

I say "four aught" or "four oh"

 

Despite what the others have written either pronunciation is correct.

 

Hi Furd..... I had a feeling you'd weigh in on this one.

 

I take an interest in where words came from sometimes, so suppose that one could check out the origination of aught or naught in order to form a conclusion, but in this case I've always assumed that is has simpler derivative. 1/0 could be "1 zero" for example, except that 1 zero could be confused with "10" and there is already a 10 gauge wire, or it could have been referred to as "one oh", but "one oh oh oh oh" could get confusing, so I'm of the opinion that it's actually pronounced "OT", unique to its' own application, for clarity, somewhat similar to the phonetic alphabet used in the military.

 

Just my opinion, but I think you ought to say aught.

 

4 aught steel wool....... 0000.

 

Jethro Bodine aspired to be a "double-naught spy" but I never yet heard anyone say they had a rifle chambered in "thirty-naught-six."

 

Some people have too much time on their hands... like this person who references that historically naught is correct, and aught is a "nineteenth century corruption of the word".

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2013

Apparently both are considered acceptable linguistically to refer to zero. Buy for the electrical field - I'll leave that to the others to argue out.

 

Zero and nothing are similar words but not really always interchangeable. I'd say the same goes for aught and naught.