<P> To determine which of two strings comes first in alphabetical order , their first letters are compared . If they differ , then the string whose first letter comes earlier in the alphabet comes before the other string . If the first letters are the same , then the second letters are compared , and so on . If a position is reached where one string has no more letters to compare while the other does , then the first ( shorter ) string is deemed to come first in alphabetical order . </P>
where does the word three come before two and seven come before six
in alphabetical order