Question about "first ever"

I neither said nor meant that, but OK.

 

Then what did you mean by sometimes we tend to overthink these things?

 

A lot of these are broadcaster's enhancements.
First ever home run.
St. Mary's led by AS MANY AS 20 points in the first half. (my personal pet peeve)
Grand slam home run.

But I have a question, came back into mind reading the guy's rewrite of the Angels story (below). I was gonna ask my daughter's English teacher recently, but I chickened out.
To me, "it's" is a contraction for "it is" not "it has." Same with "he's" meaning "he is" but not "he has."
So in the lede below, not using the contraction, it reads: "... it was the second-best catch he is ever made.."
Have I overthunk this one???


¶ ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) _ According to Torii Hunter, it was the second-best catch he's ever made.
¶ The Angels' Gold Glove center fielder made a wall-climbing, homer-stealing catch in the ninth inning to help Los Angeles hold off the Kansas City Royals 4-3 on Sunday.

 

There's a guy on this thread who says there is no such thing as "buy one, get one free" -- to me, that's overthinking things.

 

He's can mean either "he is" or "he has" -- which is why I tend to avoid it. But, in the instance above, there's really no question as to which the writer meant, so I would have just left it alone.

However, I guess there's no harm in changing it, either. My general rule of thumb is that if the meaning of the sentence is clear, then the sentence has accomplished its most important goal.

 

I agree with that.

 

"First annual" should never be used; instead use "inaugural"

 

There's no such thing as "first annual." In order for something to be considered "annual" it has to occur more than once.

 

I'm still of the school that "he's" means "he is" and will change it to "he has" in that context.

On first-ever, I'm not exactly in Rhody's camp, but I actually think there are instances where the simple "first" DOES cause confusion for the readers if not clarified. In some contexts, first could mean first this season, first this year, whatever.

So while I think first-ever is redundant most of the time, I sometimes think it works for reader clarity now and then.

 

I think AP style has "annual" occurring on the third time of an event.

 

Along the same lines, my two pet peeves are:

"different" as a modifier or explainer, as in "seven different players scored touchdowns." Seven players is sufficient.

"unanswered" as a synonym for consecutive. If the Knicks scored 14 unanswered points (OK, we know that can't happen), the Clippers then can't score for the rest of the game (OK, that could happen).

They're both broadcaster crutches, and they don't make it past me. Ever.

 

I agree with lono. "First ever is redundant." "First" gets the point across.

Perhaps you could write, "first in franchise history" if you want to get the point across without being redundant.