# Primary, secondary, tertiary....

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 20, 2003, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789 "2003-03-20T13:11:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![G.Cornelius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@G.Cornelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.Cornelius)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/1 "2003-03-20T13:11:52Z")

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What comes next?

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**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/2 "2003-03-20T13:15:38Z")

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quatenary? quaternary?

MechWarior had 4 pages of options, I think the 4th page was labeled like this.

Brian

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**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/3 "2003-03-20T13:17:30Z")

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Quaternary. I’ve also heard it used to describe the structure of DNA.

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**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/4 "2003-03-20T13:17:33Z")

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quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, denary.

you want more?

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**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/5 "2003-03-20T13:27:00Z")

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qua **r** ternary

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/6 "2003-03-20T13:35:04Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> qua **r** ternary

Nope. The word sought in this thread does not have an R ahead of the T. It comes from the Latin _quaternius_ rather than the French _quarte_ or Latin _quartus_.

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/7 "2003-03-20T15:06:27Z")

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In Geology/Paleontology, the “Quaternary” Period is composed of the Pleistocene and the Holocene, or Recent, Epochs (the latter being the time since the end of the Pleistocene). The “Tertiary” includes the epochs from the Paleocene to the Pliocene. Together, these two periods make up the Cenozoic Era. The terms “Primary” and “Secondary” are now obsolete.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2003, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/primary-secondary-tertiary/162789/8 "2003-03-20T16:07:06Z")

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**[Mundane Pointless Hijacks I Must Make]**  
My previous hard drive had partitions named “Primary”, “Secondary”, “Tertiary”, “Quaternary”, “Quintenary” etc. It was strictly ordinal, not paleontological, but did draw some comments about “periods” and “eras”, so when I upgraded to the 60 (hey, it’s a laptop, quit smirking) and put OS X on one of them, the “Carbon” applications of OS X plus the “era” stuff inspired the new partition naming convention: “Cambrian”, “Ordovician”, “Devonian”, “Silurian”, “Pennsylvanian”, “Mississippian”, and “Permian”. OS X is on “Pennsylvanian” – one of the “Carboniferous” partitions.  
**[/MPHIMM]**