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

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003, Ray Brown wrote:

> 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?
Well, that'd mean 'take away first' the way I analyse it, probably said by
someone who's use of articles is less than native and meaning 'take away
the first'. 'minus oneth' is (minus one)+th. But it took me ages to get
used to the fact that it's twenty-first, not twenty-oneth, so I'm probably
funny like that.

> >     In Gladilatian the ordinal of minus one, "zmrlrzno", means "last".
> > The
> > ordinal of minus two, "zmrlrfsut", means "penultimate", etc.
>
> ..and of minus three, 'antepenultimate' etc?  Much neater IMO than
> 'penultimate', 'antepultimate' etc. - and logical  :)
What's wrong with last, second-last, third-last, fourth-last etc.? Neat
and logical, and a lot easier to understand than antepenultimate and such.
(What's fourth-last in that way? Is there some pattern?)

--
Tristan

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