You rarely hear the words firstly, secondly, or thirdly, even though they are real words, ordinal adverbs to be exact. We rarely hear them used because the words first, second, and third work perfectly well, and the “ly” on the end is superfluous, even pretentious. Many lexicographers believe we should ban the use of firstly, secondly, and thirdly as slang or improper adverbs.
“When George said that he ‘firstly went to the well for water’, I corrected him and said that he ‘first went to the well for some water’.”
“We all looked puzzled when Sally said that she came in firstly in the race.”
“The audience scratched their heads when Sam referenced the second puzzle as the secondly puzzle.”
Entropy may be considered as much a concept as a word. When scientists talk about entropy, they talk about randomness, chaos, or disorder. Few of us have the scientific background to discuss thermodynamics, so we want to focus instead on the meaning of chaos or disorder, and one other quirky use of the word.
Entropy has also been co-opted to describe the information transfer rate for messages or languages. This is strangely related to the thermodynamic use of the word.
“After weeks of neglect, the bookshelves descended into complete entropy, with books scattered haphazardly across John’s room.”
“As New York’s infrastructure crumbled, the streets seemed to reflect the entropy of an abandoned civilization, where chaos replaced order.”
“In digital communication, higher entropy in a text message often indicates more information, making it harder to predict the content without some form of prior knowledge.”
Putting these two together in a single sentence is a mouthful, but it can be done. Firstly was so hard to combine with entropy that the only way we could do it was to start the sentence with it.
“Firstly, the artist’s studio was a place of order, but eventually, entropy took over, leaving brushes, paints, and canvases scattered in a chaotic mess.”
“Firstly, the team designed the database to be efficient, but as more and more data was added, entropy crept in, causing unexpected errors.”
“Firstly, the reception started with perfect organization, but by the end of the night, as alcohol entered the picture, entropy reigned.”
