gfish: (Default)
gfish ([personal profile] gfish) wrote2003-05-12 02:07 am

Yet Another Modest Proposal

The subject of using 'zero-eth' as the ordinal for zero came up today. While amusing, it's really an ugly construction. 1, 2 and 3 get a special ordinal (first, second, third) so it only seems right that 0 should as well. Something that flows slightly better than 'zero-eth' would also be nice.

In the spirit of the -bi binary unit prefixes, I am going to arbitrarily introduce one and hope it catches on. Ahem.

My proposal for the first ordinal when indexing from zero is 'nauth'.
Usage example: The nauth element of the buffer had better be '\0' or else strcat is going to overflow like the Johnstown Dam.

[identity profile] rollick.livejournal.com 2003-05-12 08:20 am (UTC)(link)
I like "nonth" (rhymes with "month") myself.