I'm puzzled. Would you give a hand, please?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

How can I make a W-h question for the following statement?
He is the fifth president of the the country.

2

The question could be:

What number president is he?

3

Thanks a million for your help, Conchita.

4

Can I make a question like this: What presidential number is he?
Thanks in advance.

5

Yes, you could ask the question like that.

6

Thank Conchita!
In fact, I did search on google this question and can’t see any one using the same even though I saw the phrase “presidential number” being used. People use “what number president is he?” quite a lot. I don’t know why?

Thank you again.

7

Maybe for the same reason they say ‘What size shoe’? :slight_smile:

Another peculiarity of English, that’s all.

8

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.
  6. What numberth president of the USA is Mr. Kennedy?
  7. What numberth child are you in your family?
  8. What numberth time are you going to see this movie now?
  9. What numberth time is your British uncle visiting India now?
  10. What numberth wife is she to him?
    I submitted this suggestion to the dictionary.cambridge.org,
    merriam-webster.com/opendictionary &
    en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User_talk:Hanifasmm

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

9

Thanks very much for your comprehensive explanation.I hope to hear from you for my learning again.

Yours sincerely,
soosky