Nota bene

Nota bene (/ˈnoʊtə ˈbɛneɪ/, /ˈnoʊtə ˈbɛni/ or /ˈnoʊtə ˈbiːni/; plural form notate bene) is a Latin phrase meaning "note well". The phrase first appeared in English writing circa 1711.

Often abbreviated as "N.B.", "N.b." or "n.b.", nota bene comes from the Latin roots notāre ("to note") and bene ("well"). It is in the singular imperative mood, instructing one individual to note well the matter at hand. In present-day English, it is used, particularly in legal papers, to draw the attention of the reader to a certain (side) aspect or detail of the subject on hand, translating it as "pay attention" or "take notice". While "N.B." is often used in academic writing, "note" is a common substitute.

The markings used to draw readers' attention in the medieval manuscripts are also called nota bene marks. The common medieval markings do not, however, include the abbreviation N.B.. The usual medieval equivalents are (1) anagrams from the four letters in the word nota, (2) the abbreviation D.M. from Dignum memoria (Worth remembering), or (3) a sketch of a little hand, called a manicule, with the index finger pointing towards the beginning of the significant passage.

Nota Bene (word processor)

Nota Bene is an integrated suite of applications for writers and scholars. It operates on the Windows platform and comes in two major versions: Scholar's Workstation, and Lingua Workstation.

Both versions include:

The Scholar’s and Lingua workstations are in most respects identical, except that the Lingua version is fully functional in a number of non-Western languages and alphabets. [see below]

History

Nota Bene (NB) began as a DOS program in 1982, built on the engine of the word processor XyWrite. Its creator, Steven Siebert, then a doctoral student in philosophy and religious studies at Yale, used a PC to take reading notes, but had no easy computer-based mechanism for searching through them, or for finding relationships and connections in the material. He wanted a word processor with an integrated ‘textbase’, to automate finding text with Boolean searches, and an integrated bibliographical database that would automate the process of entering repeat citations correctly, and be easy to change for submission to publishers with different style-manual requirements.