"In the first instance" ... active in contemporary populations?
On a site, I happened to use the phrase "In the first instance" ...
(Not that this is relevant, but notice the many upvotes suggesting that presumably, it reaches baseline understandability in a typical mixed-language, mixed-age, mixed-continent SE audience.)
I was utterly astounded that someone did not know the phrase,
Astonishingly, more people had not heard the phrase; my total astonishment/disgust with the Youth Of Today, etc. continued when an otherwise highly literate user figured it may be "regional" or such ...!
In particular: there was a (to me, completely bizarre) thought that it is more "descriptive than proscriptive" (or, something?)
My questions (here on the "Excellent English SE site") are
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Could it be this ordinary phrase is falling out of popularity/meaning? If so since when? (Kids of the 60s? 90s? 10s?) Is there any real way to know this? Does it appear in Harry Potter?
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Is there anything to the "unfamiliar in action sentences" concept? (i.e., as I understand the commenter's comment, "ITFI X happened" versus "ITFI do X".)
Google books actually shows a constant decreasing usage of the expression in the first instance from which probably the fact that some users find it “unusual”.
Moreover, M-W suggests it is a formal expression:
in the first instance - idiom (formal):
before other events happen : as the first thing in a series of actions You will be seen in the first instance by your own doctor who may then send you to a specialist.
For what it is worth, I am quite familiar with this expression and I don’t find it unusual.