The Three First Days of August

That doesn't sound right, does it?  You and I would agree that there's only one first day, followed by one second day, one third day, and so on.

Okay, then.  What are the three best teams in MLB baseball last year, 2012?

Maybe you'd want to say the Giants, the Tigers, the Cardinals.  You'd be wrong because there's only one best team.  That's what the World Series is all about, deciding who's best that year.  There can be only one.

Likewise, with traffic lanes on the freeway.  Why would you say the 'two, left lanes' when there can be only one left lane.  The rest are in between the one right lane and the one left lane.

What do these statements have in common?

That naming the category before the number is the only way it works correctly.

'The three first days of August' is clearly nonsense; we all know there is only one first day.  First is a positional word, whose meaning is clear.  The phrase makes sense only if if reads, 'The first three days of August...'"  The category is 'first' and the number is 'three'.

The word 'best' also indicates position.  Yet we tend to accept an equivalence between the 'best, three teams' and the 'three best teams', although the latter is also nonsense, considering that there is only one championship winner or current standing leader.

Perhaps there's an argument that 'the two left lanes' could be correct if there are an even number of lanes on the road; e.g., four, six or eight.  You might get away with saying two left lanes, two right lanes and two middle lanes on a six lane freeway.

But who wants to count the lanes before speaking?

Interesting to observe how an older, official freeway sign reads, 'Ventura Freeway, Left Two Lanes', but the temporary (and therefore, newer) ones read (and as today's radio and TV traffic reporters say), 'Two Left Lanes', almost without exception.

Yep, Post Literacy.