No or Not

Question

Hi there;I have a question about the "no or not"  at the sentence below::They've taken the decision to make it a sealed unit so no user-replaceable battery:why do we use "no" instead of "not", i think the sentence above means :... it doesn't have user replaceable battery, so i should use ... not user replaceable battery.is it right?

GPY · Accepted Answer

mirmohamadi think the sentence above means :... it doesn't have user replaceable battery

Right.

You can think of it as a shortening of "so there is no user-replaceable battery".

mirmohamadso i should use ... not user replaceable battery.

No, "not" would not work there.

Remember that the word "I" must always be capitalised. "i" is always wrong.

Mirmohamad · Answer

So many thanks about your comment and I'll use your comment from now... .

Mirmohamad · Answer

So when would "not" work?, in other words when would be used "not"?

GPY · Answer

mirmohamadSo when would "not" work?, in other words when would be used "not"?

Well, obviously there are a million examples of when the word "not" would be used, but sticking to cases that are as similar as possible to your example:

"... so not a user-replaceable battery" is acceptable informally.

"... so the battery is not user-replaceable" is fine.

Mirmohamad · Answer

So sorry , I didn't get it completely because I couldn't understand why wouldn't use at some places "Not" instead of "No"
At the previous example you have changed the sentence to "There is no user-replaceable battery" so you have concluded we should use "No" and should not be used "Not"
In other words when do we interpret the sentence "There is no" and then we could use "No" and when do we interpret "it is not"
For example:
No Standing or No Waiting.
Can explain to me more about the two samples and why we shouldn't use "Not" (Not Standing, Not Waiting)
If I think same as you, so it must be "There is no standing" and "There is no waiting".
Why these couldn't be "don't have permission to standing" and "Don't have permission to waiting"

GPY · Answer

In "there is no user-replaceable battery", the word "no" is a determiner. Determiners come before nouns and modify them. In grammatical structure, the phrase "no user-replaceable battery" is a bit like "a user-replaceable battery" or "my user-replaceable battery".

In "there isn't a user-replaceable battery", the word "not" negates the verb "is".

"No Standing" and "No Waiting" are abbreviated statements that do not follow the full grammatical rules of English. Nevertheless, you can say that the reason for "No" rather than "Not" is the same as above, i.e. "No" is a determiner modifying the nouns "Standing" and "Waiting". There is (in my view) no unique correct way of expanding "No Standing/Waiting" into a grammatically full sentence. "There is no standing/waiting" is not very idiomatic and does not express the idea of prohibition as clearly. "Don't have permission to standing" and "Don't have permission to waiting" are ungrammatical.

Mirmohamad · Answer

Is it the rule for using "No" instead of "Not" or in other words the reason of using "No" rather than "Not" is, "No" is a determiner and it comes before nouns so each time we face with noun we should use "No" instead of "Not".
Is it right and we could use that rule to determine of using each of them?

GPY · Answer

mirmohamadIs it the rule for using "No" instead of "Not" or in other words the reason of using "No" rather than "Not" is, "No" is a determiner and it comes before nouns so each time we face with noun we should use "No" instead of "Not".Is it right and we could use that rule to determine of using each of them?

"no + noun" creates a phrase (like "no battery", "no money", "no answer"). "not + noun" does not create a phrase in the same way (except in a very specialised sense in logic, which we can ignore). "not + singular countable noun" is probably quite uncommon since the noun would normally need a determiner, but it doesn't mean that "not + noun" cannot exist together in a sentence. For example, "These are not diamonds" or "I ordered wine, not beer!".

Rather than looking for a mechanical rule, you need to understand the whole sentence structure, unfortunately. Because of the huge variety of sentence structures in English, it is impossible to cover them all in a reply here. However, if you have any further specific examples please post them.

Mirmohamad · Answer

So many thanks, I got it and for now I don't have no example in this regard, but when I encounter with the same problem, I will inform you and I'll take your help to better understanding.

No or Not

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