How would you pronounce N.B. (nota bene) when reading aloud?

Question

I know how to pronounce nota bene (YouTube can help if your Italian is rusty), but if you were reading an academic paper aloud (or something else that would contain notate bene), how would you go about saying "N.B." before continuing to read the note? Simply "note", or the proper "nota bene"?

N.B.: Nota bene is Latin, not Italian (though it would happen to be the same in Italian here). — Janus Bahs Jacquet, Aug 24 '15 at 16:38
Do whatever you would do if you were saying "i.e." or "e.g." instead. Since that's the way it's written, most people would just pronounce the letters. Someone really pretentious would probably say "id est" or "exempli gratia". I myself, being a pedant, tend to just sneakily translate it to "that is" or "for example". — Doug Warren, Aug 24 '15 at 16:54
When I come across "e.g." when I'm reading some text aloud to people, I not only say "exempli gratia," I pause to ask whether they know the cases of the two words, and then I sneer at anyone who doesn't know. What do you say when you read "etc."? I hate it when people say "etsy." — deadrat, Aug 24 '15 at 19:22
@deadrat This is excellent. But etc. is typically written as if it's an abbreviation of a single word, so I think most English speakers probably say "et seterah" (or "ex eterah," which I hear all the time). If it were written like a typical Latin->English abbreviation it would be "e.c.." — SO_fix_the_vote_sorting_bug, Dec 31 '22 at 22:42

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

3

You pronounce N.B. (also written as NB or n.b., nb) as

/ˌenˈbiː/.

(MacMillan). See also Cambridge. In other words you say the names of the two letters, just like for e.g. (also eg) ( /ˌiː ˈdʒiː/). (MacMillan) You can also say Note or Note well, which parallels saying for example for e.g.

NB that the NB is from the Latin nota bene although the phrase is the same in Italian.

See also How are "i.e." and "e.g." pronounced?

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

Community

1

answered Dec 27 '16 at 13:35

Arm the good guys in America

521

None of your references address reading aloud. FWIW, I would read e.g. aloud as "for example". – michael.hor257k Dec 27 '16 at 13:43
@michael.hor257k then vote to close the question as opinion-based – Arm the good guys in America Dec 27 '16 at 13:44
Non sequitur... – michael.hor257k Dec 27 '16 at 13:53
In addition, the answer states that one can read out e.g. as for example. – Arm the good guys in America Dec 27 '16 at 13:54
@michael.hor257k You might also want to compare your answer to How is 'et al 'pronounced?, which is rather draconian and gives no reference to back it up. – Arm the good guys in America Dec 27 '16 at 14:02
I am well aware of my answer. I am afraid your missing the point of my original comment: the references that you cite do not support your assertion. That part of your answer is misleading. – michael.hor257k Dec 27 '16 at 14:13

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 24 '15 at 16:39

-1

According to Cambridge English Pronouncing dictionary, it's:

BrE - ˌnəʊtɑːˈbeneɪ, -təˈbiːnɪ, US - ˌnoʊt̬əˈbeneɪ, - tɑːˈ-, -ˈbiːni

answered Aug 24 '15 at 16:39

HUIta

519

2

Is that the entry for NB, though, or the one for nota bene (if they are distinct)? Cambridge Dictionaries Online give /ˌenˈbiː/ as the pronunciation of NB (and doesn’t have an entry for nota bene at all). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 24 '15 at 17:58
Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones – HUIta Aug 24 '15 at 18:01
That wasn’t what I asked… and you haven’t actually answered the question here at all. The asker states that he knows how to pronounce the words nota bene. He’s asking how you would read the abbreviation “N.B.” in a document out loud—whether you’d read it out as the words nota bene or in some other way. Giving the pronunciation to the words nota bene does not answer that question. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 24 '15 at 18:52
THAT is how i'd read it out loud – HUIta Aug 24 '15 at 18:53
1

Your answer should say so, then—preferably with some kind of source to make it more than just “this is what I would do”. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 24 '15 at 18:54
you're free to edit any time you want – HUIta Aug 24 '15 at 18:54
As are you. It’s your answer and your responsibility to make it a good one. As it is, it’s not. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 24 '15 at 18:57
1

this is a ludicrous comment i know that actually looking at the way the question is formulated you may understand that it's pretty much "opinion-based" and should be closed consider that for a second – HUIta Aug 24 '15 at 19:01
@JanusBahsJacquet, it's all our responsibility to ensure good answers. I edit answers all the time to make them more clear and to fix typos. If you think this site is "my way or highway," then you'd make a good dev or mod here as they don't care about us "users," but (most of) the rest of us here actually care about the community and about working together to create good answers. – SO_fix_the_vote_sorting_bug Dec 31 '22 at 22:30
@SO_fix_the_vote_sorting_bug I too edit answers to improve them all the time. That doesn’t mean answerers are not responsible for their own answers. Substantially editing an answer that doesn’t address the question in order to turn it into one that does, and thereby potentially going against the answerers intentions, is not what the edit function is intended for. (Also, this answer is more than seven years old.) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 01 '23 at 11:55

How would you pronounce N.B. (nota bene) when reading aloud?

2 Answers2