Help with English grammar

[EaglePrince 233]

Hey, guys!

 

So, I'm writing something, and right now I have a struggle with ordinals. Of course, we have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. We can even say n-th. Then for example, we also say one hundred and first for 101st.

 

But what if the number is given with an expression? If we have n+5, then it's n+5-th, that is "n plus fifth", but what with n+1? Do we say "n plus first"? Do we write it as "n+1-st"? Or we should still write it as "n+1"-th because we don't know what's the last digit of n+1?

 

I think it's n+1-st, but I'm so unsure.

 

PS. It's almost summer holidays, we should try to make a gaming event for that, what do you say for that? :)

[Mathew Steel 151]

I'm not actually 100% sure on what you're asking. However, if you know n+5 comes out as "n plus fifth", then you would be correct that n+1 comes out as "n plus first". If it's related to maths, I'm not sure you would need the st, nd, rd, etc. When I did work with n values, we would simply say "n plus one" and so on. If I've misunderstood, feel free to try and explain further :)

[EaglePrince 233]

Yes, this is about math. Unfortunately, I think simply saying "n plus one" wouldn't work for me. For example, if I wanted to say "third coordinate of the tuple". But, if we make it more general, and we look at a tuple (a_1,a_2,...,a_n), then we say that a_k is the "k-th" coordinate of the tuple. On the other hand, with k+1 I got confused.

 

I understand that even "k-th" might not be regular, but such constructions can still be used in specific areas. For example, in English for "if and only if" one more often write "iff". I don't know if that is regular in English or not though, but it is very useful. In Serbian language we have a similar construction "akko" standing for "ako i samo ako", which means "if and only if". And I know that is not by the rules, but we need it, and we use it. :)

 

Now this question turned out to be more interesting than I thought it would be. I will ask some of the professors at the university, and see what they say. I will definitely tell what I find out, unless we solve the mystery on our own before that. :)