The fortieth congress, that is, the 40th
The etymology of forty takes us to the Latin quadragesĭmus , in turn derived from quadragesĭma . The adjective refers to the number or position that, in order, follows the thirty-ninth .
Some examples
For example: “The fortieth National Congress of Gastroenterology will be held from August 18 to 20 at the Panamericano Hotel and will have the participation of more than one hundred specialists from various regions of the country,” “On the fortieth day of confinement, I started to feel a little dizzy and confused,” “My brother-in-law celebrated his fortieth birthday with a big costume party in the club room.”
As can be seen, the term is generally used to refer to a celebration, whether it is repeated with a certain frequency (a fair, a congress , a convention) or it takes place because of the time that a celebration has lasted. company, among other cases. It is not common to use it in everyday speech to adjective nouns such as "day" or "month", although in written language it is convenient for the clarity of the message. The example of the person who was locked up for a long time would be appropriate for an article or a story, since in an informal conversation he would probably say "after forty days of confinement...".
The ordinal symbol
Before continuing we must make some clarifications about the ordinal symbol. First of all, it is very common to confuse it with the degree, since they are practically the same. Let's look at a couple of sentences, one with each symbol , to try to describe their slight differences: "The temperature has risen to 40°, with the consequent increase in the use of air conditioning" , "This year we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of our company .
Although it is difficult to distinguish both symbols, the degree symbol is a perfect circle and the ordinal symbol is an oval; Furthermore, the latter has a larger size. That said, in handwriting it is not common to draw them in different ways, but this is reserved especially for print. We must not fail to mention that the feminine of the ordinal is a small a : "The 2nd week of the festival will be the most interesting."
Regarding the location of both, it is said that they are written "flown" or that they are "superscript"; in other words, they should not touch the line but be above fifty percent of the height of the font used. On the other hand, many people add a dash below the ordinal symbol; Even in some digital sources we find it this way. This does not seem to be accepted by language academies, but its use is undeniable, so much so that it appears that way on computer keyboards.
The degree symbol is round and smaller than the ordinal symbol
Uses of the concept
The fortieth ( 40th ), in short, succeeds the thirty-ninth ( 39th ) and precedes the forty-first ( 41st ). As you can see, the concept allows other quantities to be constructed: forty-first , forty-second , forty-sixth , forty-ninth , etc.
Suppose that a very prolific writer publishes, in 2018 , his thirty-ninth book: that is, number 39 . The following year, this author presents his new novel. This work , therefore, becomes his fortieth literary work ( 40th ).
The fortieth anniversary of something, likewise, occurs when forty years have passed since the event in question. Take the case of man landing on the Moon . This historic event occurred in 1969 . The fortieth anniversary of the event was celebrated in 2009 , that is, forty years after the first moon landing.
Fortieth and quarantine
It is important to mention that the notion of quarantine derives from fortieth. In fact, the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) mentions that fortieth and quarantine, in their meaning as a liturgical time, are synonyms.