I was drinking tea at my in-laws' cottage last weekend when H noticed my mug. Me: What?
H: Your mug says, "No. I cook." What is that supposed to mean?
Why is the word "number" abbreviated as no., anyway?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Overheard
I was drinking tea at my in-laws' cottage last weekend when H noticed my mug. Me: What?
H: Your mug says, "No. I cook." What is that supposed to mean?
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5 comments:
OK, my allergy medication must be affecting my brain b/c it took me a minute to figure out what exactly the cup said. LOL! That was great.
I totally thought it was No. I cook, too.
no. for number is like lb. for pound. Makes no sense to me.
-Pam
I don't think it's the allergy medication.... I had the same problem... I read it the same way as H!!
Too funny.
The abbreviation is no. because it's short for 'numero', a Latin word extracted from 'numerus'. It is classified as a type of punctuation and called the numero sign, and it means that whatever follows it is a number.
And just as a bonus, lb stands for pound because of Latin again. It is an abbreviation of the Latin word libra, which besides meaning the astrological sign meant pound weight. The full term is libra pondo, and the second term is where we get word pound. Why isn't the abbreviation po. or pn. then? Because libra was the original term before it was expanded.
Kerri
Thanks Kerri! Now I can at least TRY to explain it to H! :-)
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