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"?
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5I would say N.B.– WS2Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 16:33
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2Either Note: or En Bee:.– John LawlerCommented Aug 24, 2015 at 16:34
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3N.B.: Nota bene is Latin, not Italian (though it would happen to be the same in Italian here).– Janus Bahs JacquetCommented Aug 24, 2015 at 16:38
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2Do 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 WarrenCommented Aug 24, 2015 at 16:54
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1When 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."– deadratCommented Aug 24, 2015 at 19:22
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2 Answers
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.
answered Dec 27, 2016 at 13:35
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None of your references address reading aloud. FWIW, I would read e.g. aloud as "for example". Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 13:43
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@michael.hor257k then vote to close the question as opinion-based Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 13:44
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In addition, the answer states that one can read out e.g. as for example. Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 13:54
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@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. Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 14:02
According to Cambridge English Pronouncing dictionary, it's:
BrE - ˌnəʊtɑːˈbeneɪ, -təˈbiːnɪ, US - ˌnoʊt̬əˈbeneɪ, - tɑːˈ-, -ˈbiːni
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2Is 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). Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 17:58
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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. Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 18:52
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1Your answer should say so, then—preferably with some kind of source to make it more than just “this is what I would do”. Commented Aug 24, 2015 at 18:54
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1this 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– HUItaCommented Aug 24, 2015 at 19:01