2006-07-29 21:33:36 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
Yes, this is a big gap in English... I was just having this conversation with someone else, that in Tamil you can say the equivalent of
In your family you are the "how many'th" child?
In English there is no single word that represents an ordinal number query so you can't, and would be forced to work around it.
The easiest way is simply to ask:
How many of your siblings are older than you?
Otherwise you'd be forced into:
Out of the 5 children in your family, in age ranking, where do you stand?
Or some other ridiculously unwieldy construction.
2006-07-29 22:09:57 · answer #1 · answered by the last ninja 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Once upon a time, you could ask "which child are you" and the person would respond "i'm the 2nd" or "i'm the middle child" etc. Nowadays, such a question could just as well get an answer like "i'm the adopted one" or "i'm the step-child". You could simply pick a "ranking" and ask "are you the middle child" or "are you the youngest" etc. and the person will answer "no, i'm the 2nd child" or "yes, i am the youngest" etc.
2006-07-30 13:22:50 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Birth order?
2006-07-30 05:45:46 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Age as the determining factor.
2006-07-30 04:36:57 · answer #4 · answered by J.D. 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What hierachy do you hold in your family among your siblings?
2006-08-02 23:38:39 · answer #5 · answered by Totoru 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋