Numerical ordinal rankings (or ratings) are proliferating in the current social and economic world. Many are used to derive and justify relative monetary valuation, by modes of equation and calculation. The article shows how these composite manipulations of order and value tend to produce a parabolic curve: very few at very high value at the top, descending in a curve to very many of very low value at the bottom. The article illustrates the form of this ordinal curve and assesses the metaphors that evoke its persuasiveness. The Great Chain of Being is explored as a source of terminology.
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