The only correct way

By STEPHEN KAU

AS the saying goes: The little things in life are important. To which I add: True, but small matter is no matter. The trick, of course, is to know the difference – how to collect the important “little things” in your life and when to ignore the insignificant “small matter” irritating you temporarily.

In a similar vein, one of the more difficult decisions to make, when being pedantic about the English language, is knowing when to stop nitpicking over grammar – or else, you will end up sounding like a pompous BOF (boring ol' fart).

Having said this, I run the risk of being too pedantic with today's topic about “only” (adjective, meaning the one entity).

Too many folks, journalists included, sometimes do not know the correct placement of this adjective (and occasional adverb and conjunction) for emphasis in sentences.

Generally, most speakers and writers of English think that if they put “only” immediately after a pronoun (I/we/you/he/she/they) or a subject, then the adjective covers all the bases, so to speak.

Also, they believe it sounds better to say “only” as early as possible in any sentence.

Nevertheless, the wrong emphasis is often made in such cases.

Examples:

“The doctor only went to the local supermarket to get a packet of peanuts.”

“We only want five mangosteens.”

“She only told the waiter her choice for dessert after five long minutes.”

In the first example, the speaker's intention is to emphasise that the doctor did not buy anything else apart from the peanuts. But with the “only” placed before the “went”, the sentence could be open to the interpretation that the doctor checked out only the supermarket and nowhere else.

In this example, the correct place for “only” is after “get” – to point out that the buyer sought nothing else except the munchies:

“The doctor went to the local supermarket to get only a packet of peanuts.”

In the second example, the sentence should read: “We want only five mangosteens.”

The last example: “She told the waiter her choice for dessert only after five long minutes.”

Occasionally, “only” is the first word in a sentence, used as if for extra emphasis. Song titles Only You and Only the Lonely, and one of the most poignantly profound sayings of modern times, “Only the good die young”, come to mind.

The placement of the word in these examples is correct.

It is incorrect, however, in some instances. The main character of an animated movie says, “Only get what you need” while considering the amount of food to steal. Here, it is more precise to say, “Get only what you need” or to put the “only” at the end of the sentence.

This, too, is correct for emphasis, particularly when placed after a noun. Examples include “Cash only” and For Your Eyes Only, the James Bond novel by Ian Fleming.

Stephen Kau is a writer who lives in Sydney, Australia.