Simplification

Sir,
The following questions -
1. What is the chronological serial number for Mr. Kennedy among the USA presidents?
2. What is your seniority by age among the children of your parents?
are found to be too elaborate and not concise.

When I raised the question in the ESL forum of about.com, its staff had given me
long answers like below.
1) How many men served in the office of President of the United States of
America before Kennedy?
2) If you order yourself and your siblings by age from oldest to youngest,
where would you rank?
Their short answers are not right enough to make you understand the questions.

In my mother tongue Tamil, and in many other languages, these questions
can be put in a very simple form. By following my language style,
we can frame and coin a new English word to make it more simpler
in English also.

I have coined a new word "numberth".
The root word for "numberth" is number.
We say fourth from four, fifth from five, etc., by adding suffix "th".
Similarly, the new word - "numberth" is derived from number by adding suffix "th".
This new word "numberth" represents an unknown ordinal number and
it is a noun like fourth.

Using this new word, those above questions can be simplified as below.
1. What numberth USA-President is Mr. Kennedy?
2. What numberth child are you to your parents?
or
What numberth sibling are you in your family?

I have circulated the above my humble suggestion among my friends
and they all agree to it. But we are all from non-English speaking world.
So I submit this my humble suggestion to the English
speaking world for acceptance through this forum.
I highly value, regard and respect the English
for their broad outlook and reasoning.

Your truly,
Er.S.M.M.Hanifa,
44/30, Kalvath Sannathi Street,
Kadayanallur - 627751, India.
Mobile: 0091-9790404895

Sorry, we won't dumb down our language just to suit foreigners.

Can't you smart up your language to suit foreigners instead?

I agree. Mr. Hanifa's proposition is an improvement.

Well, those about.com answers are pretty weird. For the first one, you would just say "how many presidents were there before Kennedy?"

The second one doesn't really get asked very much in the English speaking world, simply because people don't have that many kids! Though I can identify with the question, my Bengali father being one of many brothers.

For the "general" case, the "where...rank" form works quite well. If English needed something like "numberth", then it simply would exist by now.

You can say these things concisely in English:


Which number president was Kennedy?

Where do you fall in your siblings' birth order?


"Birth order" is actually all the rage these days; people try to predict your major personality traits from your experience being the oldest, youngest, middle, or only child.

However, there is a common trick that many English-speakers use to help clarify the type or format of the answer they are looking for -- they will use a leading question, where they actually "suggest" the format they want the reply in:

Which president was Kennedy -- the 23rd?

Were you the oldest of your brothers or sisters?

These types of questions tend to elicit exactly the information the questioner is looking for, by giving the other person a "hint" as to the whole point of the question.

Similarly we can ask questions using the word - numberth as below:

What numberth time are you going to see this movie now?
What numberth time is your British uncle visiting USA now?
What numberth attempt did you pass B.A.?
What numberth class are you reading?
What numberth wife is she to him?

Likewise we can create many sentences to suit the occasions.
Without writing in a round about way, we can write straight
away with direct meaning sentences by using the word - numberth.

Yours truly,
Er.S.M.M.Hanifa

Sorry, that last guest was me.

"Numberth" is never going to catch on, no matter how handy you think it might be, Hanifa. We've already solved the problem in other ways.

First, English already has a term for numbers in an order. It's called "ordinal number". Secondly, as Uriel has alluded to, "number" can refer to both ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers. Finally, if someone isn't a fluent speaker of English, there's no way that they're going to be able to make a distinction between "number" and "numberth". Native speakers will simply think they're lisping. After all, many foreign speakers can't even make "thirteen" and "thirty" distinctive.

Let no body think that I am trying to dumb down English
language just to suit Non-English people. But we are indeed
facing problems in bringing right expression for the
following instances in English.

Please read the under mentioned.

1. Mr. Kennedy was the 35th president of USA.
2. I am the fourth child/sibling in my family.
3. I am going to see this movie third time.
4. My British uncle is visiting India first time.
5. She is the second wife to him.

How exactly can we frame the questions to get answers of the above said facts?
There is no appropriate words found in English to make straightforward
questions to get the above answers.


For the 1st statement, one American has given me answer as below.
1) In a chronologically ordered list of American presidents,
what would Mr. Kennedy's ranking be?
or (simpler)
How many men served in the office of President of the United States of
America before Kennedy?

These questions are very long and not concise and also we can't give the 1st statement
as the reply to this question even though we can manipulate to understand the matter.


That is why I propose to add a new word "NUMBERTH" in English.
The root word for "numberth" is number.
We say fourth from four, fifth from five, etc., by adding suffix "th".
Similarly, the new word - "numberth" is derived from
number by adding suffix "th". This new word "numberth" represents
an unknown ordinal number and it is a noun like fourth and
always used as noun only.
When we question it with what, its real ordinal number position is known
and it will indicate its position in the sequence of numbers.
The sequence must be in some order - that may be chronological order or
seniority order, etc, as per the context of the matter in the question.

(Note: Someone may question that there is no rule to add "th" with any word
as we wish in English. But all rules are made to provide convenience to men only.)

If we have accepted and understood the word - numberth,
we can make straight questions as below:

1. What numberth president of USA is Mr. Kennedy?
2. What numberth child/sibling are you in your family?
3. What numberth time are you going to see this movie now?
4. What numberth time is your British uncle visiting India now?
5. What numberth wife is she to him?

I am submitting this note with enough explanation. I think it may
convince the native English speakers.


Thanks.

Yours truly,
Er. S.M.M.Hanifa, Kadayanallur

hanifasmm,

You may want to submit your neologism to Merriam-Webster's "Open Dictionary":

http://www3.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary

Best,

Achab

As has already been explained, this is unnecessary. "Number" already works, and if you want to specify ordinal number, you can say "ordinal number". I don't see why you're making up new words rather than learning the ones that already exist.