| 词组 | first |
| 释义 | first Evans 1962 reports an exasperated husband who is annoyed by his wife's saying "When we were first married" meaning "soon after we were married." The husband evidently feels that first only means "for the first time." A similar understanding must underlie Lurie 1927's remarks on the curiosity of the same phrase. Lurie quotes a man from Cincinnati who thought the expression a Germanism. But it apparently is not, to judge from the remarks and examples given by Jespersen 1909-49 (volume 4) under the heading "inchoative first." Jespersen notes that the OED missed this use of first (as has Webster's Third) which he describes as denoting or emphasizing the beginning of a state, action, or change of state. A few examples of the same use in different contexts: • "The name was gilded there when first I got the guitar...." —Herman Melville, Pierre, 1852 • I saw he was drunk when he first came into the room —Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1837 (in Jespersen) • When I first arrived in the country and spoke Dutch still —William Petersen, Encounter, December 1954 For another use of first disputed on the grounds of its having only one meaning, see first two, two first See also firstly. |
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