Learn English – Does the phrase “second off” make sense

phrases

When listing out items, we sometimes prefix the first item with "First off…".

Sometimes I hear people prefix the second item with "Second off…". This doesn't sound right to me? But, is it correct to use?

Best Answer

It is an easy logical step from first off to second off, and there’s no grammatical argument against it.

However it is exceedingly rare, and markedly informal, if the Corpus of Contemporary American English is any indication. I found only three uses:

There about a thousand things wrong with what I’m hearing him tell me to do. First off, if you burn the money they can’t have it cause it’s all burnt up. Second off, Heaven don’t have a checking account at the Bank of Hell.

“First off,” Amanda said, “I ain’t movin shit. Second off, it ain’t no thing. It’s a classic. Third off, you better get out my damn face. This a free country, man. You ain’t no fuckin parkin police.”

First off, who’s your inspiration? Second off, is there any truth to the rumor between you and Justin?

Note that the first two are from fiction, and both those characters are using a decidedly non-standard dialect. So only the last item is something someone just naturally said. That’s just one use of second off in a 425 million word corpus.

Anything that rare is going to sound funny to people, so I recommend avoiding second off.

Related Topic