A Dictionary of Cont..

fine 178
tion wundering, or by a clause, as in I found my
attention wandered. When used in an active
form, find may be followed by an object and the
simple form of a verb, as in Z found my attention
wander; when find has a passive form, a
to-infinitive must be used in place of the simple
form of the verb, as in his attention was found
to wander,
fine. The use of fine to mean well, as in he is doing
fine and it worked fine, was frowned upon a
generation ago. Its status has improved since
then but it is not yet literary English. See nice.
finesse; fineness. Fineness is the quality or state of
being fine (He has a fineness of perception that
makes him particularly well qualified to judge
such tenuous distinctions). The use of fine to
mean excellent or admirable has given fineness,
in its most common popular use, the meaning
of moral superiority (There is a fineness about
him that makes it impossible for him to do anything
petty or mean).
Finesse once meant fineness in various of its
senses, but is now restricted, in popular usage at
least, to delicacy of execution or discrimination
(The finesse of the French language is a source
of never-failing delight) with, in many contexts
(in consequence, apparently, of our mistrust of
the delicatelv skillful) a connotation of artifice
or cunning -(She was not experienced in the
finesse of love. Full of their Finesses, Serve
their own Turns in others Businesses). Finesse
has a special meaning in card games.
finical; finicky; finicking; fin&in. Of the various
terms for overfastidiousness-finical, finicky,
finickina, and finikin-bnical is the earliest. Finicky
is The commonest American form (Don’t
be so finicky. Quit picking at your food. There’s
nothing wrong with it!). Finicking and fintkin
are used in England but rarely seen or heard in
America. Fowler felt that finicking (because of
a similarity in sound to niggling and fiddling)
best expressed “a hearty British contempt” for
fussiness.
The word, whatever form is preferred, seems
to have derived from the adiective fine which.
in turn, is a back formation from the verb finire,
to finish. See also fastidious.
finish may be followed by the -ing form of a verb,
as in he finished speaking, but not by an infinitive
or a clause. See also end.
finite verbs. Any verb form that is “limited” in
the sense that it has a specific tense, person,
number, mode, and so on, is called a finite verb.
In this dictionary a finite verb is called a true
verb. All verb forms are finite except the infinitive,
and the -ing form and past participIe when
these are used alone as nouns or adjectives.
fire. The American slang term for peremptory dismissal,
to fire (possibly originally a pun on discharge)
is in England to sack, or to get the sack.
Reworks. The singular form, a firework, exists
but is seldom heard in the United States. In
speaking of just one we are likely to use a more
specific name, such as a roman candle, a pinwheel,
a shooting cracker. But fireworks is a
true plural. It is always followed by a plural
verb, as in the fireworks were beautiful, and we
may speak of many fireworks or several hundred
fireworks. The form fireworks is used as the
first element in a compound, as in a fireworks
display.
first originally meant foremost or earliest, and
only later became the ordinal number for one,
meaning the element that begins a series. The
older senses are still in use, especially in the
United States where we speak of the first lady
of the land, the first families of Virginia, the
first years of life. When they were first married
refers to the early years of their marriage and
does not suggest that they were married a
number of times.
Whenever first stands in the primary position
for an adverb, that is, next to or inside the verb
form, it has the old meaning of the early period,
as in when you first cafne in. When first means
the beginning of a series, it always stands in a
position that is also open to adjectives, as in
when you came in first. Here it can be argued
whether first is more closely attached to came
or to you.
When first is combined with a cardinal
number, it may stand in the position appropriate
for foremost or earliest, as in the two first years;
or it may stand in the position appropriate for
the other ordinals, such as second and third, as
in the first fwo years. Some grammarians claim
that the order in the fwo first years is “illogical.”
That would be hard to prove, since this is the
order followed in French (les deux premiers)
and in German (die zwei ersten), and the order
seen in the first two years did not appear in
English until the sixteenth century.
Today, numbers greater than four usually
follow first, as in the first hundred years. But the
smaller numbers are frequently placed before
first when the objects they refer to are thought
of individually, as in the two first chapters were
interesting. Many writers place the cardinal
number after first only when one group is being
compared with another, as in the first two
chapters were more interesting than the second
two.
When the first thing is used as an adverb
meaning simply first, the article the may be
omitted, as in do it first thing in the morning.
first and foremost has everything: it is alliterative,
redundant, trite, and it usually doesn’t
mean much of anything. It’s just a way of clearing
the throat before you start to talk.
first fine careless rapture. Though the wise thrush
may, by singing each song twice over, convince
us that he can recapture the first fine careless
rupture, those who repeat Browning’s phrase fail
to do so. Our most poetic phrase for glorious
originality has become hackneyed, a demonstration
of the very lack of that which it celebrates.
firstly has been in the language at least since 1532.
Today it is not used as often as the related words
secondly, thirdly, and so on. Many speakers
begin with first and then go on with secondly,
thirdly. But firstly is respectable English.
During the nineteenth century firstly was condemned
as an innovation, although it had been
in use for four hundred years. De Quincey