Mesopotamia was one of the first, if not the first, place in the world where writing developed.

两河流域即使不是第一也是世界上最早发明书写的文明之一。

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Look dispassionately at Japan's economic performance over the past ten years, though, and "the second lost decade", if not the first, is a misnomer.

即便第一个“失去的十年”名副其实，冷静地看待过去的十多年日本的经济表现，“第二个失去的十年”则是一个名不副实的说法。

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If you zipped the files first, they did not become read-only when written to the CD.

如果你先压缩了这些文件，写入光盘时它们就不变成只读文件。

《柯林斯英汉双解大词典》

But traditional guidelines say not to use tPA if more than three hours have passed after the first signs of a stroke.

VOA: special.2009.08.12

Things can't become holy and can't come into contact with the holy or the sacred if they are not first pure.

事物不可能变得神圣或是与神圣有联系,如果它们连纯洁都算不上。

耶鲁公开课 - 旧约导论课程节选

So that means it's not possible, if we've made these stipulations in the first place, to have a case where l equals 1.

这说明我们之前的假设,ｌ等于１不可能的。

麻省理工公开课 - 化学原理课程节选

But the latest Indonesian case has been the largest such cluster of deaths, even if not the first.

ECONOMIST: Down with the flu | The

LeBron James, who has a Vogue cover to his name, was one of the first, if not the first basketball players to straddle the worlds of NBA and fashion.

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If not the first, Sewanee is the largest private school to institute such price cuts in recent years, said Tony Pals, director of communications for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

WSJ: University of the South Slashes Tuition, Cites Economy