{"id":2190,"date":"2016-05-04T07:50:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T13:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2020-11-25T11:17:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T17:17:04","slug":"the-only-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/effective-writing\/the-only-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Only<\/em> Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few readers took issue with the title of last week\u2019s article, \u201cPronunciation Only Matters When You Speak.\u201d They said \u201cOnly\u201d should go after \u201cMatters,\u201d not before. To which we reply: ugh. \u201cPronunciation Matters Only When You Speak\u201d is too stilted, too mannered. Our title places\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0where you usually find it: before the verb.<\/p>\n

There is no likelihood of misinterpreting \u201cPronunciation Only Matters When You Speak.\u201d So the only possible objection to it is that it is against the rules. But what rules? Yes, some authorities insist on placing\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0next to the word or phrase it modifies (\u201cWhen You Speak\u201d). But other scholars deem this practice unnecessary if the meaning is clear.<\/p>\n

There is no question that placing\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>before the verb can sometimes create confusion. The copy editor Claire Kehrwald Cook explains: \u201cIf you write\u00a0We are only ordering metal desks because they are more durable than wooden ones<\/em>, readers may think you\u2019re ordering only one type of furniture when you mean you\u2019re ordering it for only one reason. So take care with your\u00a0only<\/em>s.\u201d But Cook also says, \u201cWhen\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>falls into its idiomatic place without causing ambiguity, let it stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writers have been placing\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>before the verb at least since Shakespeare (\u201cThough to itself it only live and die\u201d). \u201cShe Only Loves Me When I\u2019m There\u201d was a hit song in 2014, eighty years after \u201cI Only Have Eyes for You\u201d topped the charts in 1934.\u00a0They Only Kill Their Masters<\/em>\u00a0is the title of a controversial movie from 1972. \u201cIt only hurts when I laugh\u201d is the punch line to a classic old joke. If you ended that joke with \u201cIt hurts only when I laugh,\u201d people would be amused all right, but not in the way you might hope.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see what the experts have said down through the years:<\/p>\n

\u201cOften, to be sure, clarity and idiom are better served by bringing\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0to a more forward position \u2026 Certainly it is always better to avoid an air of fussiness.\u201d \u2014Bill Bryson, 2003<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is torturing the sentence and the listener to make a point of saying\u00a0He died only yesterday<\/em>.\u201d \u2014Wilson Follett, 1966<\/p>\n

\u201cIts natural position is before the verb \u2026 This word order is standard literary English.\u201d \u2014Bergen and Cornelia Evans, 1957<\/p>\n

\u201cFor\u00a0He only died a week ago<\/em>\u00a0no better defence is perhaps possible than that it is the order that most people have always used & still use, & that, the risk of misunderstanding being chimerical, it is not worth while to depart from the natural.\u201d \u2014H.W. Fowler, 1926<\/p>\n

We hope those quotations promote clearer understanding of a questionable \u201crule\u201d that, if followed blindly, only encourages ham-fisted pedantry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few readers took issue with the title of last week\u2019s article, \u201cPronunciation Only Matters When You Speak.\u201d They said \u201cOnly\u201d should go after \u201cMatters,\u201d not before. To which we reply: ugh. \u201cPronunciation Matters Only When You Speak\u201d is too stilted, too mannered. Our title places\u00a0only\u00a0where you usually find it: before the verb. There is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives-adverbs","category-effective-writing"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}