the use of 'the' before ordinal numerals

[Yuri Yurinov]

Hi everybody,

Sometimes I hesitate wether to use a definite article before an ordinal number or not. For example, "today is the 2nd of October" and "my number is second to land (from the report of a pilot to a traffic controller)". Why do we use a 'the' in the first case but in the second one we do without it? Oh, such a coincidence - there are ordinal numerals in my question and I am not sure I've used the articles correctly...

Yuri
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[Cerberus™]

You used the article correctly. I am not aware of the rule, but here is my guess: "the" should be there in all such sentences, but it is often left out: "the Ethiopian athlete came in first" is short for "the E. athlete came in [as] the first". You could even say "he came in first place". In some contexts there is strong tendency to use the short form, such as sports, and others where ordinals are routinely used. Even in those contexts, the article is not really "wrong", but it would look odd because it is usually left out.

[Yuri Yurinov]

Hi Cerberus,

Thanks a lot! You helped me very much. There is nothing better than looking into the linguistic problem with the help of eyes of a native speaker.

Yuri
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