| ◌ª | ◌º | |
|---|---|
Ordinal indicator (feminine | masculine) | |
| In Unicode |
|
| Different from | |
| Different from |
|
| Related | |
| See also | U+2116 №NUMERO SIGN |
In written languages, anordinal indicator is acharacter, or group of characters, following anumeral denoting that it is anordinal number, rather than acardinal number. Historically these letters were "elevated terminals", that is to say the last few letters of the full word denoting the ordinal form of the number displayed as asuperscript. Probably originating withLatin scribes, the character(s) used vary in different languages.
InEnglish orthography, this corresponds to the suffixes‑st,‑nd,‑rd,‑th in written ordinals (represented either on the line1st,2nd,3rd,4th or assuperscript1st,2nd,3rd,4th). Also commonly encountered inRomance languages are the superscript orsuperior (and often underlined)masculine ordinal indicator,º, andfeminine ordinal indicator,ª. In formal typography, the ordinal indicatorsª andº are distinguishable from other characters.[1]
The practice of underlined (or doubly underlined) superscripted abbreviations was common in 19th-century writing (not limited to ordinal indicators in particular, and extant in thenumero sign№), and was found in handwritten English until at least the late 19th century (e.g.first abbreviated '1st' or1st).[2]
InSpanish,Portuguese,Italian, andGalician, the ordinal indicatorsº andª are appended to the numeral depending on whether thegrammatical gender is masculine or feminine. The indicator may be given anunderline but this is not ubiquitous. Indigital typography, this depends on the font:Cambria andCalibri, for example, have underlined ordinal indicators, while most other fonts do not.
Examples of the usage of ordinal indicators in Italian are:
Galician also forms its ordinal numbers this way,[3] whileAsturian follows a similar system whereᵘ is used for the masculine gender,ª for the feminine gender andº for the neuter gender.[4]
In Spanish, using the two final letters of the word as it is spelled is not allowed,[5] except in the cases ofprimer (anapocope ofprimero) before singular masculine nouns, which is not abbreviated as1.º but as1.er, oftercer (an apocope oftercero) before singular masculine nouns, which is not abbreviated as3.º but as3.er, and of compound ordinal numbers ending inprimer ortercer. For instance, "twenty-first" isvigésimo primer before a masculine noun, and its abbreviation is21.er. Since none of these words are shortened before feminine nouns, their correct forms for those cases areprimera andtercera. These can be represented as1.ª and3.ª. As with other abbreviations in Spanish, the ordinal numbers have a period ".", which is placedbefore the indicator. Portuguese follows the same method.[6]
The practice of indicating ordinals with superscript suffixes may originate with the practice of writing a superscripto to indicate aLatin ablative in pre-modernscribal practice. This ablativedesinence happened to be frequently combined with ordinal numerals indicating dates (as intertio die [writteniiio die] "on the third day" or inAnno Domini years, as inanno millesimo [...] ab incarnatione domini nostri Iesu Christi [writtenan ͂ Mo [...] dm ͂i nri ih ͂u xp ͂i or similarly] "in the thousandth [...] year after the incarnation of our lord Jesus Christ").[citation needed]
The usage of terminals in thevernacular languages of Europe derives from Latin usage, as practised by scribes in monasteries andchanceries before writing in the vernacular became established. The terminal letters used depend on the gender of the item to be ordered and the case in which the ordinal adjective is stated, for exampleprimus dies ('the first day', nominative case, masculine), butprimo die ('on the first day', ablative case masculine), shown as Io or io. As monumental inscriptions often refer to days on which events happened (e.g., "he died on the tenth of June"), the ablative case is generally used: Xo (decimo) with the month stated in the genitive case. Examples:[7]
The masculine ordinal indicatorº may be confused with thedegree sign° (U+00B0), which looks very similar and which is provided on theItalian andLatin American keyboard layouts. It was common in the early days of computers to use the same character for both.[citation needed] The degree sign is a uniform circle and is never underlined. The masculine ordinal indicator is the shape of a lower-case lettero, and thus may beoval orelliptical, and may have a varying line thickness.
Ordinal indicators may also be underlined. It is not mandatory inPortugal[8] nor inBrazil,[9][10][11] but it is preferred in some fonts to avoid confusion with the degree sign.[1]
Also, the ordinal indicators should be distinguishable from superscript characters. The top of the ordinal indicators (i.e., the top of the elevated lettera and lettero) must be aligned[1] with thecap height of the font. The alignment of the top of superscripted lettersa ando will depend on the font.
The line thickness of the ordinal indicators is always proportional to the line thickness of the other characters of the font. Many fonts just shrink the characters (making them thinner) to draw superscripts.
The Romance feminine and masculine ordinal indicators were added to many 8-bit character sets designed to support European languages, such asCP437. In 1985 theECMA-94 encodingISO 8859-1 placed them at positions 170 (xAA) and 186 (xBA). ISO 8859-1 was incorporated as the first 256 code points ofUnicode in 1991. The Unicode characters are thus:
There aresuperscript versions of the letters⟨a⟩ and⟨o⟩ in Unicode; these are different characters and should not be used as ordinal indicators.
Portuguese andSpanish keyboard layouts are the only ones on which the characters are directly accessible through a dedicated key:º for "º" and⇧Shift+º for "ª". On other keyboard layouts, these characters are accessible only through a set of keystrokes (seeUnicode input).
InBasque,Serbo-Croatian,Czech,Danish,Estonian,Faroese,Finnish,German,Hungarian,Icelandic,Latvian,Norwegian,Slovak,Slovene,Turkish, among other languages, a period orfull stop is written after the numeral. InPolish, the period can be omitted if there is no ambiguity whether a given numeral is ordinal or cardinal. The only exceptions are variables in mathematics (k+1-szy –(k+1)st).[12] Writing out theendings for variouscases, as sometimes happens in Czech and Slovak, is considered incorrect and uneducated. Should afull stop follow this dot, it is omitted.
The Serbian standard of Serbo-Croatian (unlike the Croatian and Bosnian standards) uses the dot in role of the ordinal indicator only past Arabic numerals, while Roman numerals are used without a dot.
There is a problem with autocorrection, mobile editors, etc., which often force a capital initial letter in the word following the ordinal numbers.
In 19th-century handwriting, these terminals were often elevated, that is to say written as superscripts (e.g. 2nd, 34th). With the gradual introduction of thetypewriter in the late 19th century, it became common to write them on the baseline in typewritten texts,[13] and this usage even became recommended in certain 20th-century style guides. Thus, the 17th edition ofThe Chicago Manual of Style states: "The letters in ordinal numbers should not appear as superscripts (e.g., 122nd not 122nd)", as do theBluebook[14] and style guides by theCouncil of Science Editors,[15]Microsoft,[16] andYahoo.[17] Two problems are that superscripts are used "most often in citations" and are "tiny and hard to read".[14] Someword processors format ordinal indicators as superscripts by default (e.g.Microsoft Word[18]). Style guide author Jack Lynch (Rutgers) recommends turning off automatic superscripting of ordinals inMicrosoft Word, because "no professionally printed books use superscripts".[19]
French uses the ordinal indicatorser andre for the number 1, depending on gender (masculine1er – premier; feminine1re – première).It usese for higher numbers (for instance2e – deuxième).French also uses the indicatorsd andde for the alternative second ordinal number (masculine2d – second; feminine2de – seconde).In plural, all these indicators are suffixed with ans:ers (1ers – premiers),res (1res – premières),es (2es – deuxièmes),ds (2ds – seconds),des (2des – secondes).
Although regarded as incorrect by typographic standards, longer forms are in wide usage:ère for feminine 1 (1ère – première)),ème for numbers starting at 2 (for instance2ème – deuxième),nd andnde for the alternative second ordinal number (2nd – second;2nde – seconde)
These indicators use superscript formatting whenever it is available.
The rule inCatalan is to follow the number with the last letter in the singular and the last two letters in the plural.[20] Most numbers follow the pattern exemplified byvint '20' (20è m sg,20a f sg,20ns m pl,20es f pl), but the first few ordinals are irregular, affecting the abbreviations of the masculine forms. Superscripting is not standard.
Unlike otherGermanic languages,Dutch is similar toEnglish in this respect: the French layout withe used to be popular, butthe recent spelling changes now prescribe the suffix‑e. Optionally‑ste and‑de may be used, but this is more complex:1ste (eerste),2de (tweede),4de (vierde),20ste (twintigste), etc.[21]
InFinnish orthography, when the numeral is followed by itshead noun (which indicates thegrammatical case of the ordinal), it is sufficient to write a period orfull stop after the numeral:Päädyin kilpailussa2. sijalle "In the competition, I finishedin 2nd place". However, if the head noun is omitted, the ordinal indicator takes the form of amorphological suffix, which is attached to the numeral with acolon. In thenominative case, the suffix is‑nen for 1 and 2, and‑s for larger numerals:Minä olin2:nen, ja veljeni oli3:s 'I came2nd, and my brother came3rd'. This is derived from the endings of the spelled-out ordinal numbers:ensimmäinen,toinen,kolmas,neljäs,viides,kuudes,seitsemäs, etc..
The system becomes rather complicated when the ordinal needs to beinflected, as the ordinal suffix is adjusted according to the case ending:3:s (nominative case, which has no ending),3:nnen (genitive case with ending‑n),3:tta (partitive case with ending‑ta),3:nnessa (inessive case with ending‑ssa),3:nteen (illative case with ending‑en), etc.. Even native speakers sometimes find it difficult to exactly identify the ordinal suffix, as its borders with theword stem and the case ending may appear blurred. In such cases, it may be preferable to write the ordinal word entirely withletters and particularly2:nen is rare even in the nominative case, as it is not significantly shorter than the full wordtoinen.
Numerals from 3 up form their ordinals uniformly by adding the suffix-ú:3ú,4ú,5ú, etc. When the ordinal is written out, the suffix adheres to the spelling restrictions imposed by thebroad/slender difference in consonants and is written-iú after slender consonants; but when written as numbers, only the suffix itself (-ú) is written. In the case of 4 (ceathair), the final syllable issyncopated before the suffix, and in the case of 9 (naoi), 20 (fiche), and 1000 (míle), the final vowel is assimilated into the suffix.
Most multiples of ten end in a vowel in their cardinal form and form their ordinal form by adding the suffix to their genitive singular form, which ends in-d; this is not reflected in writing. Exceptions are 20 (fiche) and 40 (daichead), both of which form their ordinals by adding the suffix directly to the cardinal (fichiú anddaicheadú).
When counting objects,dó (2) becomesdhá andceathair (4) becomesceithre.
As in French, the vigesimal system is widely used, particularly in people's ages.Ceithre scór agus cúigdéag – 95.
The numbers 1 (aon) and 2 (dó) both have two separate ordinals: one regularly formed by adding-ú (aonú,dóú), and onesuppletive form (céad,dara). The regular forms are restricted in their usage to actual numeric contexts, when counting. The latter are also used in counting, especiallycéad, but are used in broader, more abstract senses of "first" and "second" (or "other"). In their broader senses,céad anddara are not written as1ú and2ú, though1ú and2ú may in a numeric context be read aloud ascéad anddara (e.g.,an 21ú lá may be read asan t-aonú lá is fiche or asan chéad lá is fiche).
| Cardinal | Ordinal | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | a h-aon | aonú (1ú) orcéad |
| 2 | a dó | dóú (2ú) ordara |
| 3 | a trí | tríú (3ú) |
| 4 | a ceathair | ceathrú (4ú) |
| 5 | a cúig | cúigiú (5ú) |
| 6 | a sé | séú (6ú) |
| 7 | a seacht | seachtú (7ú) |
| 8 | a hocht | ochtú (8ú) |
| 9 | a naoi | naoú (9ú) |
| 10 | a deich | deichiú (10ú) |
| 20 | fiche orscór | fichiú (20ú) |
| 30 | triocha | triochadú (30ú) |
| 40 | daichead,ceathracha ordhá scór | daicheadú orceathrachadú (40ú) |
| 50 | caoga | caogadú (50ú) |
| 60 | seasca ortrí scór | seascadú (60ú) |
| 70 | seachtó | seachtódú (70ú) |
| 80 | ochtó orceithre scór | ochtódú (80ú) |
| 90 | nócha | nóchadú (90ú) |
| 100 | céad | céadú (100ú) |
| 1000 | míle | míliú (1000ú) |
One or two letters of the spelled-out numeral are appended to it (either after a hyphen or, rarely, in superscript). The rule is to take the minimal number of letters that include at least one consonant phoneme. Examples:2-му второму/ftɐromu/,2-я вторая/ftɐraja/,2-й второй/ftɐroj/ (note that in the second example, the vowel letterя represents two phonemes, one of which [/j/] isconsonant).
The general rule is that:a (for 1 and 2) or:e (for all other numbers, except101:a,42:a, etc., but including11:e and12:e) is appended to the numeral. The reason is that-a and-e respectively end the ordinal number words. The ordinals for 1 and 2 may however be given an-e form (förste andandre instead offörsta andandra) when used about a male person (masculine natural gender), and if so they are written1:e and2:e. When indicating dates, suffixes are never used. Examples:1:a klass "first grade (in elementary school)",3:e utgåvan "third edition", but6 november. Furthermore, suffixes can be left out if the number obviously is an ordinal number, example:3 utg. "3rd ed". Using afull stop as an ordinal indicator is consideredarchaic, but still occurs in military contexts; for example:5. komp "5th company".
Numbers inMalay andIndonesian are preceded by the ordinal prefixke-; for example,ke-7 "seventh". The exception ispertama, which means "first".
Numbers inFilipino are preceded by the ordinal prefixika- orpang- (the latter subject tosandhi; for example,ika-7 orpam-7 "seventh"). The exception isuna, which means "first".
InChinese andJapanese, an ordinal number is formed when a numeral is preceded by the character第 (pronounceddì inMandarin Chinese,dai in Japanese): for example,第一 "first",第二 "second". This is a typical character, not a special ordinal indicator, and unlike in European languages, it is also not an abbreviation.
InKorean, an ordinal number is prefixed by제je or suffixed by번째beonjjae: for example,제1 "first",2번째 "second".
InSpanish,superior letters (letras voladas,'flying letters') are commonly used to shorten some words,[22] such asadm.ora foradministradora ('administrator'),imp.to forimpuesto ('tax'),V.º B.º forvisto bueno ('approved'),D.ª fordoña (anhonorific), andM.ª forMaría (aSpanish name frequently used in compounds likeJosé M.ª). When a loneo ora is the raised letter, the masculine or feminine ordinal indicator may be used for this purpose, which may or may not be considered correct.
Portuguese also forms some abbreviations in the same manner, such asEx.mo forExcelentíssimo (anhonorific),L.da forLimitada ('Ltd.'), andSr.ª forSenhora ('Ms.').
In both Spanish and Portuguese, abbreviations formed this way have a period between the last regular letter and the first raised letter. Traditionally, the raised letters are underlined, but this is optional and less frequent today.
InEnglish:
Note: Traditionally in Portuguese the ordinal characters should contain the underline. The underline helps avoid confusion between the masculine ordinal and the degree character. This is important at low resolution, such as the screen, when both characters are very similar in size and shape.
Peirce also regularly used the nineteenth-century calligraphic convention of double underlining superscript portions of abbreviations such as Mr or 1st.
Bluebook rule 6.2(b)(i) (19th ed. 2010)
[...] ordinal numbers [...] no professionally printed books use superscripts [...]