How to ask a question to get an ordinal number answer




Possible Duplicates:
How to phrase an asking sentence that must be answered with an ordinal number?
Framing a question whose answer is an ordinal number



Given that I want to know Barack Obama is the 44th President of U.S.A, how can I frame a question like:



The how manyeth president is Barack Obama?




Answer



I'd go with the following structure:



Q: Where does Obama fall in the sequence of US presidents?


A: [He's the] 44th [president].



This reflects similar usage when discussing, for instance, rankings:



Q: Where did Harvard fall on the U.S. News & World Report list this year?


A: 2nd.



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