[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] typo in site documentation

[The Wanderer]

M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:

> The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net> writes:
> 
>> Diego Biurrun wrote:

>>> AFAIK both are correct English usage with slightly different 
>>> meanings. "First of all" I would think has a connotation of "most
>>>  importantly", while "first off" sounds more like "before talking
>>>  about anything else".
>> 
>> That's more or less correct. "First of all" can also mean "just to
>> get this out of the way first", and "first off" can also mean "as
>> the first thing you should pay attention to" (i.e., as the thing
>> which is the most important), but most of the time the split is
>> roughly as you describe.
> 
> You've all forgotten the concise variant "Firstly, ...", although
> that would usually be followed by "Secondly, ...".

Yes - I didn't even consider that, probably precisely because it is
specifically appropriate for lists.

>> (On the earlier point: I don't think "should you like" is correct,
>> but any of the other suggested forms are valid.)
> 
> Are you sure?  It sounds quite natural to me.  Is it perhaps a
> British thing?

On a little more thought (and not having followed your link, I'm short
on time), I think it's actually a comparatively archaic usage - "should"
with that meaning, which I'm suddenly not coming up with words to
describe, is IME effectively dead in modern (or, at least, modern
American) English. I can still recognize it easily enough in e.g. "If
you should choose to do so" (meaning "If it happens that you choose to
do so" rather than "If choosing to do so would be the best thing for you
to do"), but "Should you like" or similar sounds more like the beginning
of a question to me.

(Fair warning: I am probably not entirely awake, and I can tell that
there is more to this than I am consciously noticing at the moment.)

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.