Re: Negative ordinality (was: Please welcome . . .)

Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:

> On Sunday, December 14, 2003, at 03:29 AM, Dennis Paul Himes wrote:
>
> > Tristan McLeay <zsau@...> wrote:
> >>
> >> I've never heard of `minus oneth', though; ...
>
> 'oneth'? 'minus first' surely?
This xenophone finds the former less odd, perhaps because it suggests the more
sensible deconstruction ((minus one)-th) rather than the oddish (minus
(one+th)). OTOH, he'd use the forms corresponding to "minus first" in
Swedish ...

At any rate, the form "minus oneth" is in use, altho I cannot say with what
frequency. Googling gives a paltry 47 hits, many of which are duds ("n minus
oneth" and the like), but there's enough to sure it does occur, and not only
as a joke.

                                                              Andreas

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