There are quite a few more rules for sorting that can be applied - it's not just numbers, and numbers don't always work the way you describe.
There is "Dictionary Order", "Phone book order", and a few other standards. (Dictionary order is not lexicographic order, even if the two are now commonly conflated).
A simple rule that most still know is a book titled "The Book", should be sorted under "Book, The".
They have variations on how special characters sort, how abbreviations are handled, and even have differences in numbers. For example, in phone book order, "21st Century" sorts under “Twenty-first”, not "21".
And, of course, non-English languages add all sorts of other rules.
This tends to get ignored these days, as lexical sorts are so much easier to implement, that people forget there are other, preferred options.
There is "Dictionary Order", "Phone book order", and a few other standards. (Dictionary order is not lexicographic order, even if the two are now commonly conflated).
A simple rule that most still know is a book titled "The Book", should be sorted under "Book, The".
They have variations on how special characters sort, how abbreviations are handled, and even have differences in numbers. For example, in phone book order, "21st Century" sorts under “Twenty-first”, not "21".
And, of course, non-English languages add all sorts of other rules.
This tends to get ignored these days, as lexical sorts are so much easier to implement, that people forget there are other, preferred options.