Re: Ordinal numbers

From: Douglas G. Kilday (fufluns_at_chorus.net)
Date: 12/29/04 

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:47:20 -0000

"Prai Jei" <pvstownsend@zyx-abc.fsnet.co.uk> wrote ...

> Peter T. Daniels (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly:
>
> > Juuitchan wrote:
> >>
> >> Why is it believed that, to make an ordinal number out of a quantity,
> >> the quantity must be a dimensionless positive integer? For example, I
> >> read that a now famous road called "8 Mile" is so called because it is
> >> 8 miles away from something. But English has no ordinal form of "8
> >> miles". It should really be called "8 Mile-th Road" (or whatever). (If
> >> in English you can have an 8th Street, why not an 8 Mile-th Street?)
> >> Also, to a walker, the latitude and longitude figures (at least the
> >> longitude figures) given by a GPS are not cardinal at all, but rather
> >> ordinal. Why then, read it as cardinal?
> >>
> >> Any languages in which a latitude of, say, 38 degrees 32 minutes north
> >> would be reported using ordinal forms?
> >
> > When I first saw a map of the Detroit region (which is where Eminem is
> > from), in 1962, I surmised that the names of the streets -- they go up
> > to at least 19 Mile Road -- were taken from milestones on some main road
> > north (i.e. to Flint).
>
> Nine Mile Point was an interchange between two British railway companies -
> until they were all merged to become British Rail in 1948. There was a
> station with two platforms and two signal boxes (one for each company)
> although there was no actual community which was served thereby. It stood
> more or less that far from Newport, Gwent.
> The cardinal form "Nine" is used since the reference is to a number of
> miles.

This is fairly common in the U.S. I'm surprised Peter didn't remember Three
Mile Island. In my area there is a Sevenmile Creek and a One Mile Bluff.
However written, these numeric forms are compound adjectives in origin.

> Treinta y Tres, Uruguay is named after its latitude (33°S). Again the
simple
> cardinal form is used to refer to a quantity of something, here the number
> of degrees south of the Line.

Likewise the Ninetyeast Ridge in the Indian Ocean, referring to longitude
with respect to Greenwich.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ordinal numbers
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  • Re: Ordinal numbers
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  • Re: Ordinal numbers
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