…the last rungs of the fire-escape.
…at the next general election.
The preceding text has been professionally transcribed.
I mentioned this in a previous programme.
…the subsequent career patterns of those taking degrees.
Following, subsequent, previous, and preceding are only used to indicate the position of something in a sequence in time or in a piece of writing. Next and last are used more generally, for example to refer to things in rows or lists.
The ordinal numbers are listed in the Reference Section.
as modifiers
2.233 Ordinals are often used in front of nouns. They are not usually used after linking verbs like be. They are usually preceded by a determiner.
…the first day of autumn.
He took the lift to the sixteenth floor.
…on her twenty-first birthday.
…his father’s second marriage.
In some idiomatic phrases ordinals are used without determiners.
The picture seems at first glance chaotic.
I might.
On second thoughts, no.
First children usually get a lot of attention.
written forms
2.234 Ordinals can be written in abbreviated form, for example in dates or headings or in very informal writing. You write the last two letters of the ordinal after the number expressed in figures. For example, first can be written as 1st, twenty-second as 22nd, hundred and third as 103rd, and fourteenth as 14th.
…on August 2nd.
…the 1st Division of the Sovereign’s Escort.
…the 11th Cavalry.
ordinals with of
2.235 You can specify which group the thing referred to by an ordinal belongs to by using the preposition of after the ordinal.
It is the third of a series of eight programmes.
Tony was the second of four sons.
When ordinals are used like this, they usually refer to one person or thing. However, when they are used with a to-infinitive, or another phrase or clause after them, they can refer to one person or thing or to more than one. First is used like this more than the other ordinals.
I was the first to recover.
They had to be the first to go.
The proposals – the first for 22 years – amount to a new charter for the mentally ill.
The withdrawals were the first that the army agreed to.
as pronouns
2.236 You can use an ordinal to refer to a member of a group that you have already mentioned or to something of the kind already mentioned, and you can omit the noun that identifies the thing.
In August 1932 two of the group’s members were expelled from the party and a third was suspended.
The third child tries to outdo the first and second.
A second pheasant flew up. Then a third and a fourth.
2.237 The adjectives next and last can be used, like ordinals, by themselves when the context makes the meaning clear.
You missed one meal.
The next is on the table in half an hour.
Smithy removed the last of the screws.
ordinals used as adverbs
2.238 The ordinal first is also used as an adverb to show that something is done before other things. Other ordinals are also sometimes used to show the order in which things are done, especially in informal English. People also use ordinals as adverbs when they are giving a list of points, reasons, or items. This is explained fully in paragraph 10.54.
other uses of ordinals
2.239 The use of ordinals in expressing fractions is explained in paragraphs 2.241 and 2.243. The use of ordinals to express dates, as in the seventeenth of June, is explained in paragraph 4.88.
Ordinal numbers can be used in front of cardinal numbers. This is explained in paragraphs 2.219 to 2.220.
Talking about an exact part of something: fractions
2.240 When you want to show how small or large a part of something is compared to the whole of it, you use a fraction, such as a third, followed by of and a noun referring to the whole thing. Fractions can also be written in figures (see paragraph 2.248).
singular fractions
2.241 When you express a fraction in words, the way you do so depends on whether the fraction is singular or plural. If it is singular, you write or say an ordinal number or the special fraction terms half or quarter, with either the number one or a determiner such as a in front of them. The fraction is linked to a noun by of.
This state produces a third of the nation’s oil.
…a quarter of an inch.
You can take a fifth of your money out on demand.
A tenth of our budget goes on fuel.
Forests cover one third of the country.
…one thousandth of a degree.
…one quarter of the total population.
An adjective can also be placed after the determiner and before the fraction.
…the first half of the twentieth century.
I read the first half of the book.
…the southern half of England.
…in the first quarter of 2004.
2.242 If you are using half in front of a pronoun, you still use of after the half.
Nearly half of it comes from the Middle East.
More than half of them have gone home.
Half of us have lost our jobs.
Note that when the fraction a half is used with of, you usually write or say it as half without a determiner. A half and one half are rarely used.
They lost half of their pay.