Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Trouble is, though, that although it's easy for a human being to tell whether "No." is a negative reply or an abbreviation for the word "number", it's not so easy for a machine.
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With some simple checks it should be possible to disambiguate the negative reply from the abbreviation of the word number, which is almost always followed by a numeral, e.g.,
No. 10, Downing Street.
However, initial
No followed by a period (or other punctuation marks) and no numerals is almost always a negative reply.
If SSML were more widely available, it'd be relatively easy to search for occurrences of
No. followed by numerals and define their pronunciation as ['nʌmbə(r)]. (The default pronunciation should be ['nəʊ/'noʊ] anyway, since in most dialogue-heavy fiction books the negative reply easily outnumbers the number sign, if it occurs at all.)