Why no

Because why does not take an infinitive with to. Normally, Why is a non-subject question word, that is followed by a sentence with inverted verb and subject: Why did you take it? But there is a rhetorical use where Why effectively stands for Why should you or Why would you , or why should/would one. So Why take it? means about the same as Why should one take it? ; and Why not. Hi, there! I've got a question on why/why no/why not. Here are my sample sentences. Seeing that he was not too nasty an old man, I readily responded: It must've colder in the country, I'm afraid. No, no, he disagreed and began to cough, his words stuck up in his throat. Why? I asked. There is no reason why something should not be done means that someone does not have a good reason, or any reason, to not do something. In simpler terms, it means you can do it since there is no reason/excuse, or what @KateBunting has suggested, it would be perfectly acceptable to do it. The spelling of number is number, but the abbreviation is No (№). There is no letter o in number, so where does this spelling come from? To have a question, you need inversion: why is there no roof? Or why isn't there a roof? Edwin Ashworth: if there's no punctuation, I'd also read a headline such as why X went to dinner with Y as a relative clause. Why don't you come here? Beatrice purred, patting the loveseat beside her. Why do you not come here? is a question seeking the reason why you refuse to be someplace. Let's go in here and get something to eat, said Don. No, not here. I never eat at this place anymore, said Bob. Oh? Why do you not come here? asked Don. 0 Including why is very common in both written and spoken English, as you can verify by searching any large database of English texts. (Google gave me about 13.7 million results for one of the reasons why I as an exact phrase.) English speakers do usually try to avoid wordiness, but a single three-letter word is unlikely to be seen as. Sure, why not. . I said we were, too, so he said why not let him take us to dinner somewhere and then all come together. The second example sounds especially wrong, and as if it's missing quotation marks. Of course, most dictionary examples of the phrase in a sentence included question marks. So are the provided examples above errors? Why does English use No. as an abbreviation for Number ? It's a preserved scribal abbreviation like the ampersand & (formed by eliding the letters of et to mean and). 3 Not isn't needed after the why in the example question. The reason for this is that you have already given a reason for the why - If not, why the If not part being the question opener, you simply do not need to add the not again.

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