I've gotten into a debate over which usage of an apostrophe in the phrase "first thing(')s first" is correct.
My thinking is that one would take the first thing and give it priority, hence the first thing is first, and that thing's is a contraction of thing and is.
Her thinking is that there may be multiple things that need doing first, so the phrase should be "first things first".
What is the correct idiom?
The correct form of the idiom is:
first things first
Things is plural here. You could imagine having a put before the idiom:
- put first things first
- let's put first things first
- you should put first things first
This clarifies the plurality of things. So, her thinking is actually fact!
The latter is generally considered correct. From Oxford Dictionaries Online:
first things first
Used to assert that important matters should be dealt with before other things.
Comparing Google hits as a very rough measure of usage gives
So, the apostrophised version is an order of magnitude less common, but not negligible. Interestingly (perhaps surprisingly), it appears not just in amateur but also in professional sources, e.g. Forbes.com.
The British National Corpus has 31 instances for "First things first" and none for "First thing's first". I guess the full formula is/was "Let's do first things first" and not: First thing is first, which is as illogical as "Second thing is second"- or you could call it a tautology expressing the same idea twice.
http://bnc.bl.uk/saraWeb.php?qy=First+things+first&mysubmit=Go
http://bnc.bl.uk/saraWeb.php?qy=First+thing%27s+first&mysubmit=Go
I would write first thing's first because the full expression could be first thing is first, i.e. you will do the first thing first. Then again, one might say first things are first.
