| 释义 |
■ in the first place常常相当于中文的“本来”，可参见 to begin with 条中有关“本来”的部分。它与 to begin with 在“本来”的意义上可以互用。 - Rehabilitation indicates that the person was never a criminal in the first place.“平反”表示这个人本来就不是罪犯。
- How do you suppose I'd look going back begging Congress to lift sanctions I could have vetoed in the first place?对于制裁，我当时本来可以加以否决，但是没有否决，到现在回过头来要我哀求国会取消，你看我如果这样做会成何体统？
- Although arresting a drug ring was a police success, arresting a spy ring was seen as a failure because of the existence of a spy ring in the first place.虽然抓获一个贩毒集团是警察的一项成绩，但是抓获一个间谍集团却被看作一次失败，因为得先有一个间谍集团的存在。
- Carol should never have married Noah in the first place.卡罗尔本来就不应该嫁给诺亚。
- —Where are you going? —Home. It's was a mistake for me to come in the first place. —你往哪里去呀？—回家。我到这里来，本来就是个错误。
- The Associated Press last week reported that violence against Muslim Americans seems to have slowed to a trickle. But it was never much of a trickle in the first place. (US News & World Report, Sept. 16, 2002, p.10)美联社上星期报道说，攻击美籍穆斯林的暴力行为，看来已经放慢，变得稀稀拉拉。但是本来稀稀拉拉也谈不上。
- Hundreds of companies have closed or limited their(pension) plans in recent years, switching to 401(k)s instead. Most tech firms, among others, never offered them in the first place. (Newsweek, July 3-10, 2006, p.53)数以百计的公司结束了或是缩小了它们的（养老金）计划，转而采取 401(k)。大多数科技公司，还有其他一些公司，本来就没有养老金计划。
- They spend so much time taking care of people who are obviously sick and injured that they don't have time for those of us whose ailments are so hard to detect and so terrifying to contemplate that we can barely bring ourselves to make a doctor's appointment in the first place.他们很多时间花在照料那些明显有病有伤的人身上，至于我们这些人，我们有病有痛，但是病痛不容易查出来，或是这些病痛要处理也太可怕，所以我们本来就不容易横下心来预约医生看病，他们也就没时间管我们了。
- It's not just how we treat people when they get ill, but why they get ill in the first place, 问题不光是在于人家患了病我们怎样给他们治，而是在于他们本来是如何患上病的。
- I'm all for dedicated bike lanes because I think they benefit both the bikers and the drivers. We wouldn't come in conflict as often. But there has to be some common sense in how these things are implemented! You can't just stripe a lane and expect compliance when the effect of compliance is to reduce a three-lane road, one that effectively had only two lanes in the first place, to a road that effectively has only one lane!我完全赞成划定自行车慢车道，因为我觉得，这样对骑车的和开车的都有好处。那就不会这样常常发生冲突。但是如何实行，要讲点道理！不能贸贸然划出一条车道的界线，就要人家遵守，因为真的遵守了，就等于将一条其实本来就是双车道的三车道收窄，实际上变成了一条单车道！
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