Hi there,

I have been trying to discover the proper spelling of the word "ona" (not the right spelling I suppose), which means: without, excluding.

Example sentence: I ate a peanut butter and jam sandwich "ona" the jam; in other words, I ate a peanut butter sandwich.

Any idea how this word is spelt?

Thanks
Sarah

There is a German preposition ohne meaning 'without'. I have heard people use foreign words like French sans 'without' or German über 'above, super' before in a jocular manner, but there still foreign words IMO.

I've never heard ona or ohne before but I do hear the French sans used either is a joking way or trying to be fancy.

Welcome, Sarah. I ran 'excluding' through Onelook's Reverse Dictionary and didn't see anything even resembling ona. Where did you hear this word? It is totally unfamiliar to me. And, is it pronounced oh-nuh, on-uh, or something different?

Thank you so much! I must have picked up the word when I was in Germany several years back and, without realizing it, continued to use it as though it was a commonplace English word. It does have such a nice ring to it and does seem to innately connote "without."

Cheers,
Sarah

I'll send wseiber a note asking him to take a look at this thread; he'll probably know.

Hi,
Actually I have nothing to add to zmjezhd's concise answer...

oh, someone really should take nuncle z to task for failing to properly contract:
-ron o.

heh

I figured he was writing in sound...

someone really should take nuncle z to task for failing to properly contract

Huh, what, er ... snort ... Yes, I had noticed my solecism earlier this morning, but by then I was SOL as the period in which I could edit my infelicities had expired, and I was stuck with this lapse in spelling.

I call it finger-think. When your fingers know where they're going and don't care what your brain is saying.