Talk:not have the first idea

@Equinox, Kiwima, Andrew Sheedy, DCDuring: It sounds wrong in my dialect (Western US). Does it sound natural to you? Can we determine its geographic extent? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:07, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Never heard it. It sounds odd to my ears. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:16, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Is normal to me, also in phrases like "if you had the first idea about ___, you'd know..." Equinox ◑ 01:18, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Not only does it seem normal, so does the same construction with inkling, notion, clue.

Consider, too:

Oxford online has a definition for first that seems to me to adequately include the sense of first used in these expressions: "Met with or encountered before any others." We have a similar "Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest". That is, an idea, notion, inkling, clue that is the most basic concerning the matter at hand. DCDuring (talk) 02:40, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I think it's a slightly different sense (or at least a subsense), because the definition you describe is of course completely normal where I live, whereas I've never heard "first" preceding idea, inkling, notion, clue, thing (I think I may have read "not have the first thing" once or twice, but it wasn't written by a Canadian author), and it sounds odd to me. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 15:28, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

@Mahagaja, Widsith, thoughts? Per utramque cavernam 15:35, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• It sounds natural to me, but I wouldn't never have thought it needed a dictionary entry. I guess if people find it useful…. Ƿidsiþ 08:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)