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

[PJ]

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?

[Don Phillipson]

Post by PJ
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?

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.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

[Daniel James]

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

It's a suffix. One might call it an "ordinal suffix", as it changes a
cardinal number into an ordinal, without much fear of causing
confusion.

Interestingly, the NSOED suggests that it is related to the suffixes
that indicate superlatives (the "-est" in "biggest", for example).

Cheers,
Daniel.

[PJ]

Post by Daniel James
It's a suffix. One might call it an "ordinal suffix"

That is very useful. The reason I asked is I'm trying to think of a name for
a small bit of code I've written for a word processor to automatically
superscript the "st/nd/rd/th" on command, and I think this command should
perhaps be called:

Superscript Ordinal Suffix

[andrew]

Post by PJ
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?

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.)

http://m-w.com/mw/table/number.htm