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

[Måns Rullgård]

The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net> writes:

> Diego Biurrun wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 12:56:03PM -0400, Gary Corcoran wrote:
>> 
>>>Alexander Strange wrote:
>
>>>>>> -First off, please remember that all the developer working on FFmpeg are
>>>>>> +First off, please remember that all the developers working on FFmpeg are
>>> 
>>> The original change was correct: "First off," should be "First of
>>> all,".
>> 
>> 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, ...".

> (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?  Some discussion on the topic:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=86538

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mans at mansr.com