How everybody this is Muthu Krishnan from India. I've got a question to answer

[Senthil2k]

I'm new to this forum....I came to know this while I was searching for how to ask a typical question. ......I was asked by a person how to ask a question ...... If you were born as a 5th child you will tell you were born as 5th child......the same way how would to question it?

[Jamie (K)]

We often ask it by saying, "Where are you in the birth order?"

Usually we ask by saying, "How many children were there in your family?" After the person answers, we follow up with a question like, "Are you the oldest?" or, "Are you the youngest?" or, "Are you one of the middle children?" Usually then the person volunteers his number in the birth order.

[Daemon99]

Hi Senthil,

I don't think we have a direct question for that in English. I know we can frame that kind of question in Telugu and Tamil. You may be surprised to know that we can't ask a question like that in Hindi either.
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Non-native speaker of English
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I intend to live forever - so far, so good.

[Hanifasmm]

Hi Senthil,
This gap in the English language is often commented by many.
To solve this problem I advocated to add new word - NUMBERTH.
This word "numberth" is used as adjective and is like an ordinal number
but its value is unknown. When we question it with "what", its real ordinal
number position is known and it will indicate its position in the
ordered-sequence of numbers. Its known value will be like fourth or fifth etc.
The word - Numberth doesn't mean "How many" or "How much".
Examples:
Please read the statements under mentioned.
1. Mr. Kennedy was the 35th president of the USA.
2. I am the fourth child in my family.
3. I am going to see this movie third time.
4. My British uncle is visiting India for the first time.
5. She is his second wife.
The followings are straight forward questions for the above statements.
1. What numberth president of the USA is Mr. Kennedy?
2. What numberth child are you in your family?
3. What numberth time are you going to see this movie now?
4. What numberth time is your British uncle visiting India now?
5. What numberth wife is she to him?
I submitted this suggestion to the dictionary.cambridge.org,
merriam-webster.com/opendictionary &
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User_talk:Hanifasmm

Yours truly,
Er.S.M.M.Hanifa, Kadayanallur.

[Jamie (K)]

Instead of telling us how to speak our language your way, why don't you just learn it properly?

Suggesting new words to English dictionaries does no good, because English dictionary publishers are not in the business of creating new words and telling people to use them. The dictionaries are simply meant to reflect English as its speakers already use it.

I think I'll learn Tamil and start suggesting foreign solutions to everything in the language that is not like English.

[Torsten]

I agree with Jamie. Suggesting new words might be a fun activity but people don't start using a new word only because somebody has submitted that proposal to the publishers of dictionaries. That's not how language works.

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