Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

Yes.  In this case, there are 100 individual students, and they are
placed in some order of merit.  Number one is first, at the top of the
list: the highest in ranking order.  Two comes second, and the worst of
all is the hundredth, who is at the bottom of the scale.

This does not state whether the "100" represents 100 firms, or 100 merit
points.  If it is 100 firms, then the situation is the same as for the
students already considered.  If it is merit points, then there is some
scoring system in place that allocates 100 points to a firm that is
perfect.  A ranking of 95 seems pretty good in that case, although it
may still be bottom of the list if every other firm scores from 96 to
100.

I don't like the word "ranking" to refer to a score, though.  But I have
the overall impression that this is what it means in Gordon and Rees's
proud statement.

Now you are using the ordinal "99th".  If it is good to be 99th out of
100 on some scale, then the scale should be measuring demerits, not
merits.  I would like to be not higher than 99th out of 100 students in
a list of those making errors in their researches.

Yes.  

A company that has received a ranking of 95 out of 100 has received 95
points (or some equivalent) out of a possible 100 points.  That's
good.

A company that is ranked 99th out of a hundred is next-to-last.
That's bad.

It's possible for a company that is ranked 99th out of 100 to be good
*only* if the ranking is for something bad.  Fatalities in the
work-place, for example.  Normally, though, the ranking would be in
ascending order of fatalities and the company would be ranked 2nd out
of 100.  That's good.  

Any chart of ranking should indicate how the ranking is arrayed;
ascending or descending.  

This what it normally means and this is how I would interpret the above in
the absence of evidence to the contrary.

G&R obviously think so. Note that "ranking" is used (erroneously IMO) here
in the sense of a "score" (out of 100), and not of a "rank", which refers
to a relative position. If you look here:

<http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplace/cei.htm>

you will read:

[quote]
Corporate Equality Index
The seventh annual Corporate Equality Index shows an unprecedented 260 major
U.S. businesses earned the top rating of 100 percent, up from 195 last
year - an increase of one third.
[endquote]

to which one could add:

1. Somewhere within G&R the word "rating" may have metamorphosed
into "ranking".
2. G&R's score of 95(percent) doesn't look quite as good in the light of the
260 other firms who got full marks (100%).

To be ranked 99th out of 100 for studious diligence is bad; to be ranked
99th out of 100 for the smelliness of one's feet is probably good.