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Possible Duplicates:
Framing a question to which the answer is an ordinal number
How to phrase an asking sentence that must be answered with an ordinal number (e.g., the third prime) ?

It is very common in other languages to use the literal equivalents of "How-manyth". But some how English seems to not have that word?

How do I ask a kid?

How-manyth son are you?

(To know whether he is first or second born)

Maybe one more example,

Mr. XYZ is how-manyth president of this company?

(Is he Mr. XYZ 3rd or 5th or etc)

What is the solution? I want a single word for this!? I know the round abouts, why not English has created a word for this?

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marked as duplicate by Alenanno, MrHen, JSBձոգչ, RegDwigнt♦ May 10 '11 at 18:06

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    Duplicates: 1. Framing a question to which the answer is an ordinal number; 2. How to phrase an asking sentence that must be answered with an ordinal number; 3. How to ask a question to get a cardinal number answer. These are in "matching order". The first one is a perfect duplicate of your question, the others are strongly related. The third is slightly different but still related. – Alenanno May 10 '11 at 17:18
  • I accept those but there is no one word!? – Prabhanjan Naib May 10 '11 at 17:26
  • No, there isn't. – MikeVaughan May 10 '11 at 17:30
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    Well, I can't be 100% sure, but considering 3 questions have been asked and no-one could bring a single-word answer... I suppose there isn't one single word for that. During my languages studying, I've understood that not everything in one language is perfectly "transmutable" into another language. Consider, for example, the sentence "I like it". In italian (and other languages, see Russian for example) it's "*It is liked to me/by me" ("Mi piace." - I can't even give a literal translation), which sounds horrible in English. – Alenanno May 10 '11 at 17:34
  • @Kirk: Out of curiosity, where did this question come from? We seem to get asked this a lot and it makes me wonder if it isn't part of a test or homework assignment. – MrHen May 10 '11 at 17:35