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How does the meaning of the following two sentences differ?

  1. I first wanted to tell you about it.
  2. I wanted to tell you about it first.
RegDwigнt
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Alice
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  • #1 is unambiguous (I wanted to tell you about it before** I do/did anything else). #2 is ambiguous - it might mean the same as #1, or it might mean I wanted to tell you before telling anyone else (or even, feasibly, I wanted to tell you about it before, for example, demonstrating it). – FumbleFingers Oct 25 '13 at 21:16
  • @FumbleFingers: Or #3, I wanted to tell you about it before anyone else told you about it. Btw, can you make your comment an answer so I can upvote it? – MrHen Jan 08 '14 at 16:33
  • @MrHen: Personally, I think this is really more of an ELL question. To the extent that it fits at all on ELU, I'd say it's pretty much a duplicate of Where to place 'only' relative to prepositions?. As John Lawler says there, it's all a matter of "focus" (of the word "only", or the word "first" - it's all the same to me). – FumbleFingers Jan 08 '14 at 17:10
  • @FumbleFingers: So should we close it appropriately? – MrHen Jan 08 '14 at 17:11
  • @MrHen: You know me! I'm definitely "close-vote happy" here on ELU (the more so since ELL moved into beta). You I think are generally more tolerant in that respect. But between our first two comments I think we've given OP all the significant possibilities re interpreation of the specific examples. And John's answer per my link covers the general case for many other "positionally-dependent" modifiers. In short, the arguments for closing are sound, the Q isn't currently attracting any interest (present company excepted), and the OP has an answer. So yeah - I'll closevote if you will! – FumbleFingers Jan 08 '14 at 17:19
  • @FumbleFingers: I chose GR. Feel free to pick a different reason. :) – MrHen Jan 08 '14 at 17:24
  • @MrHen: I went for the "duplicate" option. Maybe a bit tenuous, but if three other people also decide to closevote, it'll be a "best of three" between them as to which reason comes out on top. Our comments should be enough for people to see what the issues are. – FumbleFingers Jan 08 '14 at 17:46
  • possible duplicate of Are there any rules on the positioning adverbs should take in a sentence? – Mari-Lou A Jan 26 '14 at 11:05

2 Answers2

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You can clarify the meaning of #2 with "I wanted to be the first to tell you about it" or "I want to first tell you about it."

Paul Woo
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#1 appears to indicate the action is putting more emphasis on the timing.

#2 appears to indicate the action is putting more emphasis on the order relative to the individual (i.e. before someone else) or some other action.

jordanhill123
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