There is a YouTube channel that I sometimes watch that reviews albums and also sometimes looks at the various published lists of things like “best albums of 2022”. Apart from the presenter’s inability to pronounce correctly the names of most artists he has what I consider to be an odd quirk in his reviews. He is Canadian so it might be a Canadian usage but I don’t know any Canadians to ask so I thought I would ask here. This is the question...

If I am talking about, for example, the top fifty best drummers of all time and refer to someone has being “high” in the list would that mean in number 1-10 position or number 41-50. What about “low” in the list? He consistently uses it the opposite way round to what I understand as conventional usage. I won’t say what that is just yet as I am looking for your opinion on the matter.

Smaller numbers = higher on/closer to the top of a list, is my convention.

The rationale for me is that an ordered ten-item list ought to be the same as the top ten of a fifty-item list of the same things.

"One is one and all alone and evermore shall be so," as the song goes, and it's always Number One no matter how many other items you put upon the list. And Top is Top, even if you turn the list upside down.

I'm big on consistency, as you can see.

[Did I hear you say I'm redundant, I repeat myself, I say the same things over and over again?]

I agree. He, however, consistently uses it the other way round saying things like “it’s much higher than I expected” when he thinks something placed at number fifty should really be in one to ten.

Drummers? Along with bagpipes they're high on my list of undesirable neighbors. The Japanese have it right: stick drummers on their very own island! https://www.google.com/search?...d9c5,vid:jPSAznr4Ooc

Then we can have the fifty greatest mimes if you like. The question of the odd usage remains.