Would it be correct to say "five 202ths"? [duplicate]
You asked for sources.
- Americans pronounce fractions with denominators ending with 1, 2, 3, as in twenty-firsts, twenty-seconds, twenty-thirds. For confirmation, here is a definition from Merriam-Webster, one of the canonical American dictionaries.
thirty-second 2 : the quotient of a unit divided by 32 : one of 32 equal parts of anything <one thirty-second of the total>
The word thirty-twoth does not appear in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, no matter how you spell it. While a few people may use thirty-twoth, it's definitely non-standard.
- There is a difference when the denominator is 4. Americans use both fourths and quarters for one piece of something divided into four equal parts (except for hours, which are always quarter hours) while in the U.K., these are usually quarters. Oxford Dictionaries Online has
fourth 2. chiefly North American A quarter: 'nearly three fourths of that money is now gone'
Merriam-Webster has both
fourth : one of four equal parts of something
quarter : one of four equal parts of something
In the US, the general rule is the ordinal form is based on the last element in the numeral.
- sixty-eighth
- one hundred twenty-ninth
- one thousandth
- one thousand-seventh
This does not change when the discussing the denominator of fractions, regardless of whether the numerator is singular or plural
- one thirteenth
- one sixty-first
- three thirty-fourths
- six twentieths
There are exceptions
- first
- second
- third
- fifth (although this seems to be a phonetic morph of fiveth)
- half
- whole
- quarter
The exceptions carry over to more complex ordinals
- sixty-second
- three thirty-thirds
Supplement (based on OP's further comments)
The fractional form, at least in US usage, uses the ordinal form for the denominator with only three (I think) exceptions - whole, half and quarter. And quarter is also regularly expressed as fourth.
Specifically 1/62 is either one sixty-second or a sixty-second. The 21 pizza slices are each one twenty-first of the pie (hardly worth eating!).
As to the footnotes, 131 is either one hundred thirty one or less commonly one hundred and thirty one. If it were the denominator of the fraction 1/131, it would be one one hundred thirty-first.
The pronunciation of multi-digit numbers varies based on what the numbers are used for. Telephone numbers are read differently from monetary numbers or counts of widgets, and there are variations within categories depending on the number (area code 212 is almost always pronounced two one two, rarely two twelve, never two hundred twelve, but area code 800 is read eight hundred). If you want to discuss that issue, it probably warrants a separate question.
Definitely a sixty-first and a sixty-second as far as I am concerned - no doubt about it. (Mid to South England)
Not that either would come up very often!