Board Game Arena

English-language ordinal numbers that appear in player rankings and elsewhere are often incorrect. This is a site-wide error that should be corrected.

Like so much else in English, ordinal numbers are irregular and strange. Here are the rules, for those who don't know:

• To create the ordinal form of any number ending in 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 0, add -th (e.g., 9th, 58th, 100th, 4387th).
• To create the ordinal form of 1 or any number ending in 1 other than 11, add -st (e.g., 1st, 51st, 1001st).
• To create the ordinal form of 2 or any number ending in 2 other than 12, add -nd (e.g., 2nd, 52nd, 1002nd).
• To create the ordinal form of 3 or any number ending in 3 other than 13, add -rd (e.g., 3rd, 53rd, 1003rd).
• To create the ordinal form of 11, 12, or 13, or any number ending in 11, 12, or 13, add -th (i.e., 11th, 412th, 8013th).

If these rules are easy to implement on BGA for rankings and other places where ordinal numbers appear, they should be implemented. If it is not easy, I suggest eliminating ordinal suffixes altogether because incorrect suffixes are worse than no suffixes at all. Since another way to indicate that a number is part of a ranked series is to add "#" or "No." before the number, that would be an acceptable alternative. That is to say:

• • Correct and ideal: 1551st
  • Acceptable: 1551 or No. 1551 or #1551
  • Incorrect and unacceptable: 1551th

(Please forgive cross-posting. There was an old thread on this topic under Translations but I think maybe it belongs in Suggestions.)