To finish first in a contest. How would you say the folllowing?

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

Hi, there,

  • Can you say: Céline Dion finished first in the contest, someone else finished second, third…
  • Can you also say: she ranked first in the ESC?
  • Can you say; ‘Dynasty was ranked first during its 1984-85 season’?
    or ‘Dynasty’ was ranked #1 after the finale of its fifth season?’
    I know that the symbol # means number.

Ofcourse, Céline won with ‘Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi’ when she represented Switserland. She also recorded the song in German: ‘Hand in Hand’ Celine Dion - Hand in Hand (Audio with Lyrics) - YouTube

What would you say? @Alan, @NearlyNapping, @Arinker, @Torsten.

Thank you in advance.

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2

The first one is OK. But I would end the sentence after ‘contest’. Start a new sentence with ‘Someone’. In my opinion those two thoughts should be completely separate.

The second one is OK, but ‘finished first’ is more common.

Dynasty had the highest ratings during it’s 1984-85 season.
In the US, the word ‘ratings’ is almost always used for television and radio. In other countries they might use different terminology.

You might also consider replacing ‘its 1984 season’ with ‘the 1984-85 season’.

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4

I’m sure you mean its and not it’s.

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5

Yea. I fixed it.

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6

Thank you for your reply, NN. Are they still called the Nielsen Ratings?

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7

Hi NN,

Which terminology would you use for sports? Thanks in advance.

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8

Yes. There are other ratings companies, but Nielsen is the largest and most well known.

Usually people just say first place, second place, etc. It would commonly be followed by the league or division. For example first place in the National League West.

The exception being if there is a well known alternative, like a gold medal in the Olympics. Or if someone wins the Superbowl, everyone knows what that means.

In college sports, there are rankings in some sports. These do not indicate where they actually stand, but how well they are predicted to do by so-called experts in that sport. This is related to seeding which is used in elimination type tournaments to match up players/teams in the early rounds. I don’t really know much about this, so I hope I have it right. It’s also used for gambling to set the odds.

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Thanks for your answer NN. In Belgium we use the same terms, but since I do not know a lot about sports, except league and division, I wanted to know how they were called in the US. Probably, they use the same terminology in Britain.

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