I was looking up the French word faîte ‘top, summit, pinnacle’ when I noticed the etymology said it was from Proto-Germanic *firstiz and cited Old English first as a cognate. I was surprised, but I quickly learned there was a noun first (“Now rare“) that means “An inner roof; a ceiling, esp. a panelled one” or “The ridge piece of a roof” (OED; “probably < the same Indo-European base as classical Latin postis doorpost”). The common adjective (“That is before all others”) is in origin just the superlative of fore, but the OED entry (updated September 2014) has an interesting “History of use as ordinal of ‘one’”:
Most of the Indo-European languages had no regularly-formed ordinal of the number one, and in many of them, this function is performed by words derived from the base of fore adv., chiefly with the addition of superlative suffixes. Compare e.g. Sanskrit prathama, Old Church Slavonic prŭvŭ, Old Russian p′rv′′, ancient Greek πρῶτος, πρώτιστος, classical Latin prīmus.
In Old English the ordinal of ‘one’ was expressed by adjectival superlative forms derived from bases meaning ‘early’ or ‘front’: compare Old English forma forme adj.¹, from the same base as the present word (apparently originally meaning ‘front’) but with a different superlative suffix (< the same Indo-European base as classical Latin -mō -mo suffix), and compare also (with further addition of -est suffix) fyrmest, formest (see foremost adj. and foremost adv.); compare also, from a different base with the core meaning ‘early’, ærest erst adj., cognates of which are the usual ordinals of ‘one’ in other West Germanic languages (compare forms cited at erst adj.).
The adjective fyrest, although apparently a regularly formed superlative, is rare before late Old English, and it is uncertain whether it could function as an ordinal in early use. Use with reference to position (compare sense A. 2a) may be early, if the word was already present in the lost early Kentish original of the passage from which quot. lOE at sense A. 2a is taken. Otherwise, use with reference to rank (compare sense A. 1a) is attested earliest, although these early attestations tend to be problematic. Thus quot. eOE at sense A. 1a shows otherwise unconfirmed transmission in an early modern transcript, quot. OE1 at sense A. 1a shows a probable attestation in a crux in a frequently difficult poem, and it has been suggested that quot. OE2 at sense A. 1a may reflect Scandinavian influence, as it ultimately goes back to an oral account by a traveller from Norway. Perhaps the word was more current in varieties of Old English that are not well attested, such as Mercian; compare its early use as ordinal in the Peterborough Chronicle (see sense A. 3a). With the spread of the use of the word as ordinal compare the converse tendency of foremost adj. to become associated more closely again with its cognate fore adv., both formally and semantically.
In Germany, we use the word First for a specific shape of the roof, often as Dachfirst or Firstdach. I imagine the term has been linguistically transferred to the top line of a house. It’s from Middle High German virst, which became Old High German first.
And of course there was that strange period when in British English, ‘first’ was the ordinal for two, and children grew up counting counting Premier, First, Second, Third…
Typical sibling banter of the time
>>”You were first last time. I get to go first this time.”
>”All right, suit yourself. You’re first. I’m premier.”
@Ryan: What period was that? It’s completely foreign to me. Does it come from when they created the Premier Football League, as distinct from the First, Second etc?
And of course there was that strange period when in British English, ‘first’ was the ordinal for two, and children grew up counting counting Premier, First, Second, Third…
This seems bizarre and I have no idea how it might have worked. Can you elaborate?
Yes, I’m just making a joke about the period when the Premier League was created, but instead of calling the next level down the Second Division, they stubbornly called it the First for a decade.
It was in a sense a corporate dispute – the former First Division clubs had all moved out, and into a new corporate structure – the Premier League. The existing Football League treated it as if their former Second Division clubs were promoted to *their* First Division, rather than conceding that their first was the second tier.
And note that promotion and relegation between Premier and “First” continued. It wasn’t like there was a competing unit called the First Division trying to maintain its supremacy, like the NHL and the World Hockey Association or something. The so-called First Division was pure and simple the 2nd tier.
A decade later, they moved on to using Championship, League One and League Two, which is about as ridiculous.
Thanks, that makes sense. (I never understood the league system.)
Scotland is now Premiership, Championship, One, Two, which makes No Sense At All.
Clearly “Two” should be renamed “Other One.”
Queen should update We Are the Champions.
“Of the Second Tieeeeeeer!”
First in de.wiktionary; “ridge of a roof” (which fits faîte very well) or, and I didn’t know that, “crest of a mountain range” (usually Kamm or Grat).
The other way around of course.
Wimbledon’s kind of the same – centre court, court 1, court 2.
Everybody has won and all must have prizes.
The only comfits I ever knew were licorice comfits, and they don’t generally come in boxes. But then the whole chapter confused me, so it didn’t matter very much.
I didn’t know that, either. This meaning is not listed in the Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, which means it’s either non-existent or at least very rare in the contemporary language. Pfeifer’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch lists this meaning only for Middle High German, while Paul lists it, but has no examples. If we turn to Grimm, there are two examples, one from Old High German, the other from Johann Peter Hebel in the early 19th century: “auf flur und feld, in berg und thal, auf first und halden”.
Scotland is now Premiership, Championship, One, Two, which makes No Sense At All.
Spain used to have 1, 2, 2B, 3 (in words). I think they’ve recently switched to something different though IIRC still not very sensible.
The system in Italy had varied, but one recent version is A, B, C1, C2, D.
Israel is another case where the numbering starts from the 3rd tier. I think I’ve seen a league system somewhere (forgot where) where the equivalent of League 1 was the 4th tier.
(Some googling says it was probably Switzerland, which furthermore has two 2nd levels, so their 3. Liga is actually the 7th tier. Israel apparently had a direct three-tiers-above-the-numbers system from 1999 until 2009.)
Germany has Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga, 3. Liga, Regionalliga, Oberliga (then the system diverges, but AFAICT it’s usually some variation of Verbandsliga, Landesliga, Bezirksliga, Kreisliga, with an occasional -oberliga and/or -klasse somewhere in there).
Apparently Oberliga (split by region) used to be the highest tier, then the Bundesliga was created as a national level above it, and then a bunch of other tiers were slowly awkwardly added in between.
France, until 2018-ish (I don’t recall when exactly), had 1, 2, National, CFA (I forgot what that stood for), CFA 2, Division d’Honneur; then, again, the system diverged, but IIRC one variant was Division d’Honneur Regionale, Promotion d’Honneur, Promotion d’Honneur Regionale, then I think maybe Excellence, and then D1, D2, D3 (for District). They liked their big words for the divisions… though again, I think Division d’Honneur used to be the highest (regionalized) tier before the national league was created on top of it.
The reform had gotten rid of all of this, in favor of L1, L2, N1, N2, N3, R1 (for Regional), R2, R3, D1, and however many tiers the district had. (I think it can go up to 7 at least.)
Portugal apparently has 1, 2, 3… and the (4th tier) Championship of Portugal. (Followed by regional leagues, which use different big words depending on the league.)
EDIT:
comfits
Distantly related to Russian конфеты, apparently. Doublet of confections and a bunch of others.
Check out bond ratings. Bonds rated “B” are well down in “junk” territory.
During an earlier debt ceiling showdown, one of the rating agencies dropped the rating on United States Treasury bonds from AAA to AA+. Ironically, due to the unique position of the American government as creator of the world’s principal reserve currency, the drop in ratings made the bonds more attractive to investors, not less
Unix versions (in public release): 6th, 7th, 3.x, III, 4.x, V.
First Blood
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rambo III
Rambo
Rambo: Last Blood
Apparently Oberliga (split by region) used to be the highest tier, then the Bundesliga was created as a national level above it, and then a bunch of other tiers were slowly awkwardly added in between.
Correct. I still remember times when the 2. Liga consisted of a Northern and a Southern division, and the 3. Liga was introduced only 15 years ago.
The League of Ireland* briefly had three levels: the Premier Division, the First Division, and the A Championship
*not to be confused with the Irish League, which is Northern Ireland
Rambo IV is just called Rambo? How did I miss that.
(It’s the one I’ve watched. The first 15 minutes pretend to have a plot, the rest is just nonstop machine-gun fire.)
Windows… I’ll just mention Neanderthal Technology, and that I’m waiting for version 12 because that’s probably the next one after the current 10.