I recall reading that American schools now approve "fault" ordinal numbers, like 1th, 2th, 3th, ... (instead of 1st, 2nd, 3rd). I've googled my ass sore but can't find anything related to the news. What I did find was a few dates, like "May 1th", "2th dec" and "March 3th". So what's up, is my memory from a nightmare or not?

I've not heard of such a thing. No one here uses those. I can't imagine why schools would teach it

I work for a public school district in the US. I don't believe this new format (Nth) is being used anywhere in the city I live.

I don't believe so. I think 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Nth is still considered correct. Since I'm not an educator (not at this job, anyway), I did shoot an email to the superintendent of curriculum to find out for sure. Also, she's involved in a lot of "trendsetting" organizations, so I also asked whether she had ever heard of this new notation and whether or not it seems to be gaining ground (we're in the middle of the mid-west, not exactly the bleeding edge). I'll let you know when I get some answers.

I really doubt anyone would be brainless enough to try teaching ordinal numbers that way. Even if they did, unless they're also going to teach kids to pronounce them "Firth", "Seconth", and "Thirth", it would never last. Then again, this IS the country that still thinks water freezing at 32 degrees and 5280 feet to a mile are an efficient system, so you never know.

I can see the logic of it, personally. The biggest complaint that I hear about English is how exceptional and non-standardized it is. Reducing the number of "little special cases" would help greatly in making international English a little less painful for non-speakers. But yeah, don't count on Americans to make sense when it comes to measuring things. Even the British have given up on Imperial Units (how do you like that for irony).

Firth Of Fifth?

Superintendent has never heard of this new method, so not only are we not using it, there is no immediate plan to adopt. I would say it is not widespread if it's in use in the US at all.

If you want to speak english, learn english. It's not like China is making Chinese any easier for non-native speakers to learn?