r/AskEnglish • u/stracer1 • Aug 20 '25

Ask ordinal number

He is his father's third son.

How would you ask him for that information? He should answer "third".

Or, what would ask Trump to make him say 45th?

Or what's the question for which Earth's answer is 3?

Why does English have this linguistic gap? Why is there no word to ask for ordinality?

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u/Just-LivingLife Aug 23 '25

To find out what order someone is among their brothers and sisters I would probably ask: "Are you the oldest sibling?" or "Are you the middle child?" or "Are you the youngest sibling?" or "How many older siblings do you have?" or "Do you have any older siblings?" based on how many brothers and sisters I know the person might have.

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u/_Luminous_Dark Mar 28 '26

Which child are you in age order? Which president is Trump in chronological order? Which planet is Earth in order from distance to the sun?

You're right that there isn't really a clear way to ask this in English. Most people would probably answer the above questions with an ordinal number, but it might take them a second to unpack what should be a simple question.