Spelling of ordinals

[marenparn]

Hi

What is the latest good practice in spelling ordinals: should they be written with superscript or not?

Thanks a lot in advance

[5jj]

If you mean writing the figure followed by st, nd or rd, then the choice is yours, though some publishers may insist on one form.

[marenparn]

Yes, I meant superscripting st, nd, rd, th. I've googled a bit and it looks like that good parctice suggests not to superscript them.

[waflob]

Personally, I prefer to superscript them. However, it does depend on the form of communication used. If I'm writing a quick email, I usually can't be bothered to go to the trouble of doing it.

As with so many things like this, the important thing is that you stick to one or the other.

[5jj]

Yes, I meant superscripting st, nd, rd, th. I've googled a bit and it looks like that good parctice suggests not to superscript them.

No. Neither practice is 'better' than the other.

[BobK]

If you mean writing the figure followed by st, nd or rd, then the choice is yours, though some publishers may insist on one form.

- as do some word processing packages (though 'insist' may be putting it too strongly - if you type '1st' in Microsoft Word you get superscipts by default, though I imagine if you felt strongly about it you could change the default.)

b

[Ouisch]

I always preferred ordinal numbers to be written using superscript, but most of the major style guides today (Associated Press, Chicago Manual of Style) specify that the "th" or "nd" (etc) be typed in regular script.