birth order

[Mary1987]

How can we ask about someone’s birth order in the family? I mean when someone says I have 3 sisters and we want to know if she is the 1st,2nd,…child?

Thanks

[Anglophile]

What is her ordinal position (in the order) of birth? would be possible.
(Similar questions have been discussed earlier on this forum)

[Cristina.ro]

I found the thread where this topic was discussed a while ago: Which number do you stand in your siblings?

…but I think I would simply say:
What is your birth order among your siblings?
What is your birth order in the/your family?

[Beeesneees]

It would be possible but extremely unlikely and unnatural.

[Cristina.ro]

I see, thanks.

[Beeesneees]

Hi Cristina,

We had an air miss.
My response in message #4 was to message #2, not to your message #3.

As answers to that question (or rather ‘questions to that answer’) go, I think you’ve found the only fairly natural way of putting it!

[Cristina.ro]

@Beeesneees

As answers to that question (or rather ‘questions to that answer’) go, I think you’ve found the only fairly natural way of putting it!

Hi Bev,

Yippee!

[Mary1987]

Thanks everyone

[Canadian45]

@Canadian45

@Cristina.ro

…but I think I would simply say:
What is your birth order among your siblings?
What is your birth order in the/your family?

[color=blue]But that doesn’t guarantee an ordinal-number answer. And for whatever reason this question keeps showing up on the internet, the issue is not one of finding a natural-sounding answer. The issue is to get an ordinal number as the answer. And the only way to do that is to specify that the answer be an ordinal number.

[Cristina.ro]

@Canadian45

But that doesn’t guarantee an ordinal-number answer. And for whatever reason this question keeps showing up on the internet, the issue is not one of finding a natural-sounding answer. The issue is to get an ordinal number as the answer.

So you’re saying that the questions I came up with might elicit a bit of a funny response such as “I am child number three” and not “I am the third child (of five)”?

Or are you thinking of a different classification such as “eldest, middle, youngest”? Even if it were so, such an answer would be clear and close enough for me.

(If it were up to me I’d use “How manyth[color=red]* child are you among your siblings?” – pretty much like the funny suggestion mentioned in the other thread and also a word for word translation from my native language.)

[color=red]*Not a word at all, of course!

[Cristina.ro]

@Canadian45

[color=blue]And for whatever reason this question keeps showing up on the internet

Perhaps that happens because many other languages have specific structures to form this question.

[Canadian45]

@Cristina.ro

So you’re saying that the questions I came up with might elicit a bit of a funny response such as “I am child number three” and not “I am the third child (of five)”? :-)[color=blue]yes, of course

Or are you thinking of a different classification such as “eldest, middle, youngest”?[color=blue] Those [color=blue]are not ordinal numbers. Even if it were so, such an answer would be clear and close enough for me.

[Canadian45]

@Cristina.ro

@Canadian45

[color=blue]And for whatever reason this question keeps showing up on the internet

Perhaps that happens because many other languages have specific [color=blue]words to form this question.

[Beeesneees]

Personally, I would use ‘specific language patterns’, but I don’t see your problem with Cristina’s use of ‘structures’. In fact, to my mind it is more appropriate than ‘words’.

[Canadian45]

@Beeesneees

Personally, I would use ‘specific language patterns’, but I don’t see your problem with Cristina’s use of ‘structures’. In fact, to my mind it is more appropriate than ‘words’.

[color=blue]That’s odd, as ‘ordinal’ and ‘number’ are words, not “specific language patterns” or “structures”.

[Beeesneees]

You cannot form a question just by using those two words. You have to place them within a language pattern/structure.
The structure is what is used to form the question.

[Cristina.ro]

@Cristina.ro

Or are you thinking of a different classification such as “eldest, middle, youngest”?

@Canadian45

[color=blue] Those are not ordinal numbers.

No kidding, you don’t say! You could have knocked me down with a feather!

@Canadian45

@Cristina.ro

So you’re saying that the questions I came up with might elicit a bit of a funny response such as “I am child number three” and not “I am the third child (of five)”? :-)[color=blue]yes, of course

Or are you thinking of a different classification such as “eldest, middle, youngest”?[color=blue] Those [color=blue]are not ordinal numbers. Even if it were so, such an answer would be clear and close enough for me.

Joking aside, sorry if I wasn’t clear enough: I was of course asking if the questions I suggested in message #3 might elicit a response containing a cardinal number OR an adjective such as “eldest/middle/youngest”.
.

I’ve always considered answers like “I am child number three” to be at least somewhat jocular. Should I understand that in reality such an answer is not in the least bit strange and you would give that reply with a straight face?

[Cristina.ro]

@Canadian45

[color=blue]And for whatever reason this question keeps showing up on the internet

@Cristina.ro

Perhaps that happens because many other languages have specific structures to form this question.

@Canadian45

Perhaps that happens because many other languages have specific [color=blue]words to form this question.

@Canadian45

[color=blue]That’s odd, as ‘ordinal’ and ‘number’ are words, not “specific language patterns” or “structures”.

Well, we’ll probably have to agree to disagree on that, but, just in case there’s anyone who cares to hear my reasoning:

It’s about specific language structures (the way words are combined to form a natural sentence – or a question in this case) and word structures (suffixes, prefixes etc.), NOT about the words “ordinal” and “number”. (Unless, perhaps, we have come to the conclusion that English is not only missing ordinal numbers but it is simply missing numbers altogether!)
.

Apropos of the proposed word to help form the question under discussion, namely “manyth”: it actually makes a lot of sense because it involves adding the suffix “-th” to the word “many” just like in the way the same suffix is used in the formation of ordinal numbers.

[Anglophile]

@Cristina.ro

Apropos of the proposed word to help form the question under discussion, namely “manyth”: it actually makes a lot of sense because it involves adding the suffix “-th” to the word “many” just like in the way the same suffix is used in the formation of ordinal numbers.

You have taken only ‘manyth’. It was ‘How manyth’ or ‘Howth’ as indicated in my old post you quoted. In my view, the latter (How > Howth) would make more sense because a single word (like who > whose, whom) should serve the need, though these two words were only suggestions made by people.

It’s time we coined a word in the light of the reality that many other languages, particularly Asian, have specific words to frame such a question structure. After all, necessity is the mother of invention!

[Cristina.ro]

@Anglophile

You have taken only ‘manyth’. It was ‘How manyth’

Indeed, since “how” already is a word!

@Anglophile

It’s time we coined a word in the light of the reality that many other languages, particularly Asian, have specific words to frame such a question structure. After all, necessity is the mother of invention!

I vote for the phrase “how manyth”, but I suppose “howth” would do too!