Ordinal numbers. Do you know what they are? Early in the week Laurie called and asked, “What are ordinal numbers?” Absolutely nothing came to mind, but I didn’t feel too dumb until she said, “Carter brought home a worksheet and the instructions say to color the ordinal numbers. When I asked him if he knew what they were, he said, ‘Do you mean first, second, third…?’” Note: we should have listened to him.

Oh, yeah, it gets weirder. Not having a clue, I recommended she consult one of our family’s math whizzes. She called Katey and Katey said, “Do you mean first, second, third…?” OK. That cinched it, but we weren’t through yet. Katey said, “I wouldn’t have remembered but Tucker had homework on that subject last week.” Mind you, Carter is in kindergarten and Tucker is in first (ordinal number) grade. And the adults can’t even help them with their homework??

Weirder still…. Last night on So You Think You’re Smarter Than a Fifth (ordinal number) Grader one of the questions for Regis Philbin was “What is the ordinal number for ten?”

Stranger things have happened, but this one has made my week!

Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: ordinal number
Function: noun
Date: 1607
1 : a number designating the place (as first, second, or third) occupied by an item in an ordered sequence — see number table 2 : a number assigned to an ordered set that designates both the order of its elements and its cardinal number

(Do you know what a cardinal number is?)