Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009

The "elder" and "eldest" forms are typical of British-style English--in
this context, but not in others--but I have a slight feeling that they
are used less commonly than they used to be.

In any case, I think we'd usually say "John is the second of eight
children."

[...]

Wouldn't it be easier to replace "oldest" with "first born"? Then the
birth order will follow "like butter": Jim, the first born and Julie,
the third born,  live in New York."

"Farhad":

Mark Brader:

Oh, and with that change, it's (b).

On May 28, 7:03 am, "Tasha Miller" <tashamill...@gEEEmail.com.invalid>
wrote:

Does this semtence, which Tasha proposed, seem natural and correct to
native English speakers?

Farhad

What is the order /within the family/ in which John was born?

The trouble is, *any* English phrase will sound odd and clumsy because
you are expressing (or trying to express) a notion that simply does not
exist in English.

That doesn't sound quite right either. At one time, people wrote popular
books explaining how personality was determined by position in the
family in childhood. They tended to use the term 'birth order'. " What
is John's birth order?

I'd split it into two questions - 'Does John come from a big family?'
and 'Is John the eldest (or youngest) in his family?' in hopes of
eliciting the desired information.

Cheryl

It would probably be understood, especially if you added "in the (or
'his') family" somewhere in the question, but it doesn't sound like
something a native speaker would say.  I suppose you could ask, "Does
John have any older brothers or sisters?"  If the answer is not
detailed enough, you might have to ask again: "How many (in all)?"

You are getting closer, but it does not make sense to a native English
speaker to speak of one single person (John) being born "in order".

You could, however, ask about the order of the whole group:

  What was the order in which John and his siblings were born?

Or ask specifically about John by asking:

 Where does John stand in order of birth among his siblings?

 (or, "...among his brothers and sisters").

This second question, however, is, to use your words, not a "neat way"
of asking.  It sounds a bit "clinical" (i.e.it's technical language --
almost jargon -- that a doctor might use).

In everyday conversation (though not in writing), if I wanted to know
where John stood in the birth-order of his siblings, I'd be inclined to
say something like:

  Is John the oldest child in his family, or the youngest, or what?

Or just
 
 Is John the oldest child in his family?

(If he is not, the person answering will probably say exactly where he
stands in birth order, if the person knows, e.g.: "No, he has two older
sisters" or "No, has an older brother and an older sister", etc.)

Or,

  Are John's brothers and sisters older or younger than he is?  (or,
more colloquially, "...older or younger than him?" or possibly just
"...older or younger?")

(Again, with this question, I'd usually expect full information in
return, though it is also possible to get an answer like "they are all
older" which does not tell you how many older siblings he has -- in
which case, I'd follow up by asking: "How many?" if I wanted more
complete information.)

Usually, though, if we are interested in birth order at all, "oldest",
"youngest", or "in-between" ("a middle child") is all we want to know in
(and, since families with more than three children are less common than
they used to be, often that _is_ complete information!).

"Order" unmodified suggests a religious order, as Bertel Hansen
indicated when he responded "Knights of Jerusalem".  I would have
preferred "Benedictine", but let it pass.

Because birth order is not something of concern to most English
speakers, you must put "birth" before "order" to make it clear what
you're asking about.

"What is John's placement in his family's birth order?"

Or, less formally:

"Where is John in his family's birth order?"

Alas, I think the most likely reponse to this would be "head first, then the
rest" - with suitable modifications in the case of a breech birth or other
complications.

Nice try, but it won't work.

Katy

No, because an individual can't be in an order.  The only thing that
question can literally mean is "did his head or his bum come out
first?".

As we said last time, we really don't care about this, so don't ask.
Ditto for - if I recall correctly another conversation in a similar vein
- we don't ask what is the ordinal number of our local branch of a chain
of shops.

In our last episode,
<45e75cfe-5507-4ccb-8905-f1a21dc44a32@j19g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
the lovely and talented Farhad
broadcast on alt.usage.english:

Opps.  I suppose I have now answered it twice.

No.  John being born is one event.  For "order" to be meaningful, there
would have to be more than one event.

Believe me, this comes up every six months or so, and no one has discovered
an easy answer.  Moreover, a novel way of putting it would not be part of
the language yet.  I am pretty sure there are technical terms in sociology
or anthropology which would get at the desired meaning.  But there is nothing
in the general language that you could reasonably expect non-academic people
to understand.

A census-taker's question might be:  "Would you tell me the names of your
children from oldest to youngest?"  Most people could understand that
question, but would find it odd or offensive in ordinary conversation. And
it leaves it up to you to reason the answer to your question about John.

For most purposes, primogeniture has been outlawed in English-speaking
places for centuries, and even when it was lawful, the only question was who
was the eldest.  It is not a culturally important question in most
English-speaking cultures.  Oldest, youngest, and middle are as fine as
these distinctions ever get in conversation.

Lars Eighner filted:

Maybe the best solution would be to simply ask the question in one of those
other languages....r

Lars Eighner skrev:

I don't think that it is a very important issue in Denmark - not
even important - and it has been many years since I have come
across it, but people do speculate about what it means for one's
personality which number in the sibling group one has.

...

The one I know of is Chinese.

"Also, since it is taboo to refer to or address a more senior family
relation by his or her given name, the kinship term is the only
possible term of address. In the case where there are multiple
siblings such as found in many Post-World War II baby boom families,
the relation is distinguished and addressed according to their age or
rank. For example 大 (great/senior/elder) is address for 大姨 (the eldest
sister of one's mother); 二姨 (the 2nd eldest sister of one's mother); 三
姨 (3rd eldest sister of one's mother) etc."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship

(We'll see who gets the Chinese characters.  The ones for "two" and
"three" are quite intelligible to us non-Chinese.)

Fun project: translate that article into native-speaker English.

--
Jerry Friedman