I know that there are many here who don’t like those metasyntactic variables. For programmers, they are often quite useful, serving the same role that Lorem ipsum does in layout and design: holding the place of real variables (or text) without distracting the reader with irrelevant content.
This was an attempt to restore them in people’s good graces, here. I actually wanted a sentence where they came in the beginning and was going to use it to demonstrate my short-lived notion of two different uses of first. I couldn’t come up with anything, but this worked for last/first which was close enough. Now it seems easy enough: Foolish barbarian bazooka have no place in a civilized household; get rid of the guns! Oh, well. Too late!
Right this was my abortive attempt to suggest that first, last and their friends could extend to strings as well as title lists. I quickly realized that won’t work. It was a short-lived detour on the discussion about having a useful substring operator.