Referring to things in a sequence: ordinal numbers

2.249 If you want to identify or describe something by indicating where it comes in a series or sequence, you use an ordinal number.

Quietly they took their seats in the first three rows.

Flora's flat is on the fourth floor of this five-storey block.

They stopped at the first of the trees.

Note that you can also use 'following', 'last', 'next', 'preceding', 'previous', and 'subsequent' like ordinal numbers to indicate where something comes in a series or sequence.

The following morning he checked out of the hotel.

...the last rungs of the fire-escape.

...at the next general election.

The theory stated in the preceding chapters is invaluable.

I mentioned this in a previous programme.

...the subsequent career patterns of those taking degrees.

'Following', 'subsequent', 'previous', and 'preceding' are only used to indicate the position of something in a sequence in time or in a piece of writing. 'Next' and 'last' are used more generally, for example to refer to things in rows or lists.

The ordinal numbers are listed in the Reference Section.

2.250 Ordinals are often used in front of nouns. They are not usually used as complements after link verbs like 'be'. They are usually preceded by a determiner.

...the first day of autumn.

He took the lift to the sixteenth floor.

...on her twenty-first birthday.

...his father's second marriage.

In some idiomatic phrases ordinals are used without determiners.

The picture seems at first glance chaotic.

I might. On second thoughts, no.

Almost all babies—especially first babies—have fretful spell.

written forms 2.251 Ordinals can be written in abbreviated form, for example in dates or headings or in very informal writing. You write the last two letters of the ordinal after the number expressed in figures. For example, 'first' can be written as '1st', 'twenty-second' as '22nd', 'hundred and third' as '103rd', and 'fourteenth' as '14th'.

...on August 2nd.

...the 1st Division of the Sovereign's Escort.

...the 11th Cavalry.

ordinals with 'of' 2.252 You can specify which group the thing referred to by an ordinal belongs to by using the preposition 'of' after the ordinal.

This is the third of a series of programmes from the University of Sussex.

Tony was the second of four sorts.

When ordinals are used like this, they usually refer to one person or thing. However, when they are used with a 'to'-infinitive clause of another qualifying phrase or clause after them, they can refer to one person or thing or to more than one. 'First' is used like this more than the other ordinals.

I was the first to recover.

They had to be the first to go.

The proposals—the first for 22 years— amount to a new charter for the mentally ill.

...the fashion in which Theodore treats the Europeans, the first he has encountered.

as pronouns 2.253 You can use an ordinal to refer to a member of a group that you have already mentioned or to something of the kind already mentioned, and you can omit the noun which identifies the thing.

In August 1932 two of the group's members were expelled from the party and a third was suspended.

The third child tries to outdo the first and second.

A second pheasant flew up. Then a third and a fourth.

2.254 The adjectives 'next' and 'last' can be used, like ordinals, by themselves when the context makes the meaning clear.

You missed one meal. The next is on the table in half an hour.

Smithy removed the last of the screws.

ordinals used as adverbs 2.255 The ordinal 'first' is also used as an adverb to indicate that something is done before other things. Other ordinals are also sometimes used to indicate the order in which things are done, especially in informal English. People also use ordinals as adverbs when they are giving a list of points, reasons, or items. This is explained fully in paragraph 10.79.

2.256 The use of ordinals in expressing fractions is explained in paragraphs 2.258 and 2.260. The use of ordinals to express dates, as in 'the seventeenth of June', is explained in paragraph 5.87.

Ordinal numbers can be used in front of cardinal numbers. This is explained in paragraphs 2.236 to 2.237.