I think that you have "Voice Control" turned on. There is a setting in Voice Control that adds item numbers to, well, all items, and some of those items are the dropdown menus. Numbered items are much quicker to use when you only need to say numbers... Yes, Voice Control is also used with "dictation". Go to your System Settings, then "Accessiblity", then to Voice Control. I bet you see that Voice Control is, in fact, turned on. You can then see a setting called "Overlay", where you can turn the item numbers off. That should take care of that list-number question. Or, you can simply turn OFF Voice Control, assuming that you might have turned it on accidentally...