Someone sent me an email the other day where they quoted a section of a legal document. Each sentence started as a new paragraph and each paragraph was preceded by "firstly", "secondly" and so on. And so on! It went on to "seventhly". There may have been more but this is where the quoted section stopped.
I've only ever heard people go as far as "fourthly". Is "seventhly" really correct? Where does one stop? Can I say, "twenty-firstly" the next time I argue with a customer service rep? Or "ninety-secondly" when I'm refuting someone's lowball valuation of one of my portfolio companies?
I think the correct usage regarding numbers in grammars is switch to digits once the count exceeds 10. Anyway, the concerned person might not have been introduced to usage of number list! :)
Posted by: Account Deleted | Apr 13, 2012 at 01:30 PM
I know what you're saying, but not sure how to put it into practice. Does one say, "29'ly"? I want the "-ly" sense of it.
Posted by: Murli Ravi | Apr 16, 2012 at 04:32 PM