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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
ORDINAL NUMBER
I am an English lover, teacher and writer from Kerala, India. As a writer of the English language columns, I have so far received more questions about how to ask a question in English that elicits an ordinal number as answer than about any other topic. You know that ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE etc are called "cardinal numbers" and that FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH, FIFTH etc are "ordinal numbers". When you ask a question, using HOW MANY, the answer will be a cardinal number:
A: How many books did you read last month?
B: Five.
Except for ONE, TWO, THREE, we add "-th" to the cardinal number to make it an ordinal number:
four-fourTHfive-fifTHsix-sixTH
Then what about adding the same "-th" to HOW MANY to make it HOW MANYETH or HOW MANIETH?
I think it is a good coinage but unfortunately no Englishman has ever coined such a phrase.
The English people are said to use WHAT NUMBER? to elicit an ordinal number as answer:
A: What number president of America was Abraham Lincoln?
B: 16th.
What number president of America is Obama? You find out, please.
WHAT NUMBER is used in speech. In writing, they use the following mode:
Where in the chronological order does Obama come as president of America?
Do you have any further sentences? Please share with me.
O.ABOOTTY
KANNUR
KERALA
INDIA
A: How many books did you read last month?
B: Five.
Except for ONE, TWO, THREE, we add "-th" to the cardinal number to make it an ordinal number:
four-fourTHfive-fifTHsix-sixTH
Then what about adding the same "-th" to HOW MANY to make it HOW MANYETH or HOW MANIETH?
I think it is a good coinage but unfortunately no Englishman has ever coined such a phrase.
The English people are said to use WHAT NUMBER? to elicit an ordinal number as answer:
A: What number president of America was Abraham Lincoln?
B: 16th.
What number president of America is Obama? You find out, please.
WHAT NUMBER is used in speech. In writing, they use the following mode:
Where in the chronological order does Obama come as president of America?
Do you have any further sentences? Please share with me.
O.ABOOTTY
KANNUR
KERALA
INDIA
Top answer
You may also like to read through [url=]THIS THREAD[/url], Mr Abootty.
- You may also like to read through [url=]THIS THREAD[/url], Mr Abootty.
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3 Answers
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You may also like to read through [url=]THIS THREAD[/url], Mr Abootty.
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As an English teacher and writer of English language books, I have been asked by countless people from different parts of India "how to construct a interrogative sentence that elicits an ordinal number as answer. For example, you know that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of America. Frame a question whose answer must be the 16h. What everyone knows is that ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR and FIVE are
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Welcome to English Forums, O.Abootty.
Please do not double-post.
Please do not double-post.
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