4 Apr
2014
4 Apr
'14
9:02 a.m.
The earliest instance of a fractional ordinal that I can come up with is the 1953 Warner Brothers cartoon short "*Duck Dodgers* in the 24½th Century". Although from the spelling you'd guess it's pronounced "twenty-four-and-a-halfth", the protagonist pronounces it "twenty-fourth-and-a-half". (The cartoon also features a memorably nutty form of teleportation.) Jim Propp On Friday, April 4, 2014, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
My daughter Eliana will be five-and-a-half tomorrow.
We are wondering: will tomorrow be her five-and-a-halfth birthday, or her fifth-and-a-half birthday?
Jim Propp