When were numeric contractions for ordinals first used, as in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th instead of first, second, third, sixth? Is there a name for letters that follow a number, such as the "st" in 1st or "nd" in 2nd? There are multiple ways to express this in competitions: Winner, 1st runner-up, 2nd runner-up, etc.

Understanding the Context

1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, 1st prize, 2nd prize, etc. In your example it may help to say how many were competing, because if you came in 3rd place out of three, that is quite different that third place out of 100, or however many. 1st hour, 2nd hour, 3rd hour... But how to say "zero"-th hour?

Key Insights

The Bears went from worst to first, but what comes after that for teams who make such a journey is usually more difficult than they imagine. The biggest question of all facing the Bears going into ... When is it proper to use 1st instead of first? For example, is the correct sentence acceptable? Can you give more detail about why you 1st got involved?

Final Thoughts

I tried finding some authoritative source... abbreviations - When is it proper to abbreviate first to 1st? - English ... I'm wondering which is the right usage between "the 1st" and "1st" in these sentences: a) The United States ranked 1st in Bloomberg's Global Innovation Index. b) The United States ranked the 1st...