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Usenet Posted 23 years ago
Usage

1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th <--What's the "th" called?

Hi
Rather than write "First, second, third..." we often write 1st, 2nd, 3rd... The "st/nd/rd/th" is often in superscript of course.

I'm wondering if there is a name for this use of "st/nd/rd/th" after the number?

Patrick
Brighton, England
  

Top answer

" we often write 1st, 2nd,3rd... The "st/nd/rd/th" is often in superscript of course. [/nq] It is just called a contraction, like inst.

— Usenet

  • " we often write 1st, 2nd,3rd...
  • The "st/nd/rd/th" is often in superscript of course.
  • [/nq] It is just called a contraction, like inst.
  • ultimo, and other conventions of 19th century (or earlier) business writing.
  • Scribes have been used to contractions since the era before printing, when all copies had to be written by hand.
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2 Answers
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[nq:1]Rather than write "First, second, third..." we often write 1st, 2nd,3rd... The "st/nd/rd/th" is often in superscript of course. I'm wondering if there is a name for this use of "st/nd/rd/th" after the number?[/nq]
It is just called a contraction, like inst.
ultimo, and other conventions of 19th
century (or earlier) business writing. Scribes
have been used to contractions sinc
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[nq:1]Hi Rather than write "First, second, third..." we often write 1st, 2nd,3rd... The "st/nd/rd/th" is often in superscript of course. I'm wondering if there is a name for this use of "st/nd/rd/th" after the number?[/nq]
I don't know if there is a name for the actual endings, but words like first, etc. are called ordinal numbers. The opposite is the cardinal numbers (one, two, etc.)
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