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0 pointsadrian_b1y ago0 comments

Your arguments using "first" and "second" are invalid, because those words have nothing to do with numbers, like also "last".

If you argue based on English, you should point only to the ordinals "third", "fourth" and the like.

In the older European languages, the initial position in a sequence was named using words like "first", which mean "closest to the front". The next position was named with words meaning "the other", e.g. "alter" in Latin (the old European languages had 2 distinct words for "the other from two" and "another one from many", e.g. "alter/alius" in Latin).

However when the need for naming other positions in a sequence besides the first, the second, the last or the next to the last (penultimate) has appeared, then the ordinals derived from numbers have been invented, like third, fourth etc.

In later Latin, the word meaning "the other" has been replaced with a word meaning "the following". This has been inherited in the Romance languages and it has been borrowed in English as "second". Also in Old English, "other" had been used for "second", before "second" was taken from French.

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InsideOutSanta1y ago

> Your arguments using "first" and "second" are invalid,

> because those words have nothing to do with numbers

"First" is the ordinal number corresponding to the number one, while "second" is the ordinal number corresponding to the number two. You can represent "first" as 1st and "second" as 2nd. I believe the origins of these two words do not significantly impact my argument.

adrian_bOP1y ago

Nothing in the word "first" indicates that it corresponds to "one". The same for "second". Those words are not numerals, "first" is a superlative adjective, while "second" is an active participle. They are perceived as ordinal numerals only because English does not have ordinal numerals for the 2 initial positions of a sequence and "first" and "second" are used instead of the missing ordinal numerals.

The abbreviations "1st" and "2nd" are very recent and they cannot be used as an argument that there is a long tradition of correspondence between "first" and "one".

Like I have said, the correct argument based on English is that the position after the second is called "third", which is derived from "three", and the next position is called "fourth" from "4", so extrapolating backwards that sequence results in decrementing "3", which gives a correspondence between "2" and "second", and decrementing the number once more gives a correspondence between "1" and "first".

This is the exact reasoning that has lead to the abbreviations "1st" and "2nd", which have no relationship with the pronunciation or the meaning of the abbreviated words, which mean "closest to the front" and "the following", meanings that are unrelated to any numbers.

InsideOutSanta1y ago

It doesn't matter whether there is a long tradition of correspondence between first and 1 and second and 2. What matters is that the correspondence exists today, because I'm making my argument today.

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InsideOutSanta1y ago

> Your arguments using "first" and "second" are invalid,

> because those words have nothing to do with numbers

adrian_bOP1y ago

The abbreviations "1st" and "2nd" are very recent and they cannot be used as an argument that there is a long tradition of correspondence between "first" and "one".

InsideOutSanta1y ago

It doesn't matter whether there is a long tradition of correspondence between first and 1 and second and 2. What matters is that the correspondence exists today, because I'm making my argument today.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse