Ordinal numbers

[Richmond]

So I have a field containing a text string (nothing very special there).

BUT, I want to delete the eleventh character.

Now scripts like this:

delete the tenth char in fld "TEKST"

work superbly.

But after 'tenth' we get "in a pickle" . . . .

and we have to do this:

delete char 11 in fld "TEKST"

SO; after 'tenth' we switch from Ordinal to Cardinal numbering, which is:

1. Inconsistent.

2. Makes the "Livecode Programming is in easy to understand English" 
sort of pronouncement
look a bit disingenuous.

3. The Dictionary does NOT warn users about this change:

for instance, if one types 'tenth' into the Dictionary search one gets this:

"Use the tenth keyword in an object reference or chunk expression.

It does NOT contain a "Government Health Warning" like this:

For references above 10 one must use Cardinal numbers and the syntax of 
statements is
different.

-----------------------------------

Today, having got my 10-13 years olds onto importing and exporting RTF 
documents;
one of them [you know the one: the one you want to both throttle and 
admire for
his/her thinking about 3 kilometres in front of you] asks "how do I set 
up a series of buttons to delete
the first, second and third character in a textField?" SO, told her 
(let's cut out the politically correct crap; all the kids I teach who 
get their heads round Livecode really quickly are girls: the boys just 
lose interest)
to use:

delete the third char . . .

Of course she obviously overdosed on Coca-Cola before class and decided 
to have buttons for 1st to 20th (well, she may be good at programming, 
but she is still a 12 year old kid); and, obviously things go
pear-shaped at 'eleventh'.

So told the girl that at that point you have to do:

delete char 11 . . .

AND; LO! out of the mouths of babes . . .

"That's silly!"

Which it is, frankly.

SO: I did the usually "middle-aged teacher fudges around so that, 
eventually, he looks even more
stupid than he does already" and told her that the best way to get 
around that was to do:

delete char 1 . . .

and, of course, her reply was: "So, if that's best why did you tell me 
about 'first, second' and 'third'?"

Now I had a choice of things to say at that moment:

1. "Because I'm a slob who didn't think about that problem." [possibly 
the only reasons I didn't use this
one was that it was a bit early in the morning for honesty, and, as a 
Bulgarian learning English she
doesn't know the word 'slob']

2. "Because I didn't think you would go beyond 'third'"

Neither of which are frankly satisfactory.

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Love from the "chalk face", Richmond.