A high-schooler in Indianapolis, Indiana, wonders why the word number is abbreviated as no. when there’s no letter O in the word. The answer lies in the Latin word numero, which is the ablative form of the Latin word for number, numerus.
印第安纳州印第安纳波利斯的一名高中生想知道为什么数字这个词被缩写为No，尤其当数字这个单词中没有字母O的时候。答案就在它对应的拉丁词汇numerus的离格形式Numero身上。
- Hello, you have a way with words.
你好，《能说会道》节目。
- Hi! My name is Vivian, I am calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.
嗨，我的名字叫薇薇安。我来自印第安纳州的印第安纳波利斯市
- Welcome, Vivian! What can we do for you?
欢迎薇薇安，我们有什么能帮到你的吗?
- I had a question why is the abbreviation for the word number (it just spelled n-u-m-b-e-r) No, is the letter O isn't anywhere in the original word.
我有一个问题，为什么number，拼写是n-u-m-b-e-r，这个单词的缩写是No，在原单词里根本没有o这个字母啊
- Oh, so you think it maybe should be Nu instead of No is the abbreviation ha?
哦，所以其实你觉得它的缩写更应该是Nu，而不是No
- Right I mean like... probably.
是的，可能是吧
- Ha ha ha ha! It's part of a set of abbreviations we have that are basically older than English, at least modern English. It goes back to the Latin form of the word number... it's... One form of it was numero, very much like in Spanish and Italian today in n-u-m-e-r-o.
这是一套比英语，至少是现代英语更古老的缩写的一部分。它可以追溯到单词number的拉丁语形式，其中的一种是numero，非常像现在西班牙语和意大利语中的n-u-m-e-r-o
And Latins scribes abbreviated a lot of their writing and the way they abbreviate that word was in №, the little marker maybe they raise O with the line above it to indicated that the word had been shortened.
拉丁文字中有很多缩写，他们缩写这个词的方式是用o这个小标记，把o加上横线升格表示这个词被缩短了
So that's it...so we just capt that Latin abbreviation.
就是这样，我们就使用了拉丁语的缩略语
- Wow! That's so cool!
哇，太酷了
- Yeah, there's a few others like that... pound is the classic example of that, like a weigh lb for pound.
是的，还有很多跟它一样的词……pound就是个典型的例子，作计量单位时写作lb
- Yeah, yeah... in the original Latin word is numerus but that particular case...ablative case means in or with.
是的,是的。在最初的拉丁语单词numero中，这种离格的书写的意思是in或with
- Yeah, abl... we don't have cases in English in that way so it's kind of ... lost on us but yeah.
是的，我们在英语中没有这种格式，就是慢慢丢失了这种情况
- Well cool, thank you for telling me.
谢谢您帮我解惑
- Yes, that's pretty much it. Thanks for call. Really appreciate it.
是的，差不多就是这样，感谢你的来电
- Thanks, bye!
谢谢，再见
- Take care, bye!
保重，再见
No其实是拉丁语的numero sign数字符号，而numero是拉丁语numerus（number这个词的来源）的离格形式。离格的意思其实就是“和”或者“在”的意思，也就是说No. 1严格意义上讲是 with the number one的意思。
它最开始的样子是取numero的首尾字母写成№、Nº，有那一横方便区分。后为了方便打字书写逐渐成了我们现在熟悉的No或no。
