Imagine there’s a sequence of items, it started somewhere in the past and will keep on going. The kind of items could be anything – say days, or football matches, or lectures, or widgets out of an assembly line.
I’d like to refer to the future item that will be, say, the 100th if I start counting them from now. I hope you understand what I mean: the 1st would be the next, the 2nd would be the one after the next, and so on.
How do I denote that future 100th item with a concise expression? I thought of “the next 100th item”, but it doesn’t sound right.
The problem is that if I just say “the 100th item”, that refers to the number 100 since the sequence started, not the number 100 starting counting from now.
Example:
The last 10 widgets were red and blue; the 20th widget from now will be yellow.
Saying “the 20th widget from now” doesn’t sound right – but maybe it is? Nor does “the next 20th widget” sound right.
As usual, if possible please also give some references. Cheers!
Thank you. My problem is differentiating the “coming” 100th from the “past” 100th. But I realize my post in unclear about that, I’ll edit it now!