who's on first
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.82 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A situation in which confusion arises due to homophones and similar misunderstandings.
Example Sentences
- "This pride of sponsorship, rather than pride of rating, seems to have been lost in the welter of decimal points and who's-on-firsts."
- "With that, you'll know she knows how you feel — which relieves you of the supposed-tos, the what-ifs, the what's-my-moves and the who's-on-firsts, and frees you just to see how it all turns out."
- "“Goddess, Mistress. I'm sorry, Mistress.” I felt a who's-on-first moment coming on."
- "But Rose interprets the remark as a statement that the girl is having a party herself, which leads to a “Who's on first?” comedy of errors."
- "This 'who's on first' conversation continued, both of us getting more and more frustrated than the other, until it hit me."
- "(The Japanese car model is a Sosumi, as we learn in a Who's on First? comic exchange; Gribble recently dealt with a case involving an Isuyu.)"
Etymology
From "Who's on First?", a comic routine from 1930s vaudeville made famous by Abbott and Costello, in which two people discussing a baseball team become confused by names such as "Who" and "What".
Inflected Forms
who's on firsts (plural)
who's-on-first (alternative)