Grammar Girl here. This week I have a quick and dirty tip about how to use the word first.

A piece by a sail graves about starting a sentence with the word so.

And a tidbit about senecta-ki. I'm going to tell you what that means.

Now for our quick and dirty tip. Are you using the word first properly?

This excerpt from the book Word Workout will help you get it right.

A headline in the New York Times book review refers to, quote,

the novelist who first conceived of cyberspace, unquote.

An story in the Boston Globe says that, quote,

when Southwest first announced it would fly to Boston from Baltimore for $49 each way,

jet blue added another route there too, unquote.

And a reporter on NPR's All Things Considered says, quote,

when holder was first appointed over a year ago, unquote.

Did you catch the recurring error in these three citations?

The problem is a misuse of the word first.

When it's understood from the context that something is being done for the first time,

or when the verb in the context means doing something for the first time,

the word first is redundant.

To conceive means to imagine for the first time,

to form an idea before anyone else has done so.

Thus, the book reviews headline should read the novelist who conceived of cyberspace.

Likewise, to announce means to make no one or make public,

which happens only once so the Boston Globe's copy editor should have changed

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