I’ve seen the adverbs firstly, secondly, thirdly, and so forth, used in texts that are pretty old, but there’s no reason for them. The forms aren’t logical, since first, second, third, last are already adverbs. They don’t need to have the –ly appended to them. They’re a little like the phony word irregardless, with the double negative supplied by a prefix and a suffix. That word is supposed to mean “without regard,” but its form suggests instead “not without regard.” At least firstly doesn’t do that. It means, “in a first kind of way,” “in a before-everything-else manner,” but what does that say that first doesn’t already say? Rule of style: just use the real old adverbs, and forget the redundant suffix.
Yet, to cut firstliers a little slack: speakers use redundancies all the time when the basic form is no longer “heard” in full. A case in point: foremost. That’s a double superlative. Think of the m in Latin superlatives: miserrimus, most miserable, facillimus, easiest. That m shows up in our old word meaning before everything else: our modern word former. But after a while people no longer “heard” the m as a superlative. So they had to tack on another superlative suffix, the common –st: foremost, before everything else that is before everything else.
December 27th, 2012 | 10:17 am
Hm. The “firstly” in the new translation of the Roman Canon grates on my ear, but on your word I will reconsider it.
December 27th, 2012 | 11:24 am
Steve — it grates on my ear, too. Yet I’ve just seen C. S. Lewis use, after “first,” “secondly” and “thirdly.” I don’t like any of them, but they’ve been around a long time. Otherwise the new translation is immeasurably superior to the old, which wasn’t a translation at all, but a dishonest paraphrase.
December 27th, 2012 | 12:17 pm
Once I noticed that discrepancy between “first” and “secondly,” I excised the -ly forms from my written vocabulary. But you know those Brits. Always throwing in extra vowels and even whole syllables, while the Americans, efficient as we are, ruthlessly prune superfluities from our lexicons.
However, I wish “irregardless” could be a real word meaning exactly what it says–not without regard. It would at least be useful during committee meetings.
December 27th, 2012 | 12:56 pm
To take a step back, it seems odd to me that “first”, etc., can be considered adverbs.
Take the sentence, “I woke first.”
‘First’ does not modify the verb, as much as it modifies an unspoken, assumed noun construct – i.e “I woke first among everyone in the house.” Thus, it is an adjective.
“Firstly”, by the same extension, can be considered a proper adverb. “Firstly, untie me.”
‘Firstly’ modifies an unspoken, assumed verb construct – “I tell you firstly among several things I am going to tell you, untie me.”
Just a thought.
December 27th, 2012 | 2:20 pm
Lawrence — nice thought, but I’m not buying. First, second, et cetera do imply a series, but it could be a series of actions or events, as well as a series of persons or things: “First she kissed me, then she picked my pocket.” The words “first” and “then” are adverbs, answering, roughly, the question “when”.
By the way, “forma” (the second r is an add-on by analogy with other comparatives) corresponds exactly with Latin “prim-,” as in primus; adverbial primo.
December 27th, 2012 | 5:11 pm
I don’t like “firstly” either and count it as incorrect when I see it on student papers. Yet, as you admit, we see it in perfectly respectable authors. Perhaps we should remind ourselves that Miles Coverdale uses “Most Highest” in reference to God in his translation of the Psalms. Sounds odd to my ears, yet this sort of thing has been around for centuries.
December 27th, 2012 | 10:09 pm
I think Tony provides the ultimate or, at least, penultimate comment on first things.
December 27th, 2012 | 11:02 pm
David: I actually do like “Most Highest”! It has a naive exuberance about it. We also, in Middle English, allowed double and triple negatives for emphasis rather than for reversals. I think the classic case is Chaucer’s Knight, who “never yet ne spake no vilenye” to anybody, high or low.
What do y’all think of a self-contradictory superlative, like “most unique”? I mark it as an error … unique is unique.
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