Use of "only"

[David]

Take these two statements:

1) Maurice Ravel only composed one string quartet
2) Maurice Ravel composed only one string quartet.

My preference is for number 2, as we're talking about "only one" rather than "only composed" (as opposed to anything else that can be done with a string quartet), but I do see a lot of examples of version 1 around. What do others think?

[SusanB]

1 - composed one string quartet, but nothing else.
2 - composed one string quartet and no others, but may have also composed a lot of other stuff.
For this reason I also prefer the second one.
?

[Alan Palmer]

Isn't a string quartet a group of four musicians who play stringed instruments?

[Sue M-V]

Ah, we've had this up on the old APS!

I learnt the following example at an early age, that demonstrates the variations of meaning one can get from a sentence by moving only through it.

* The * peacocks * are * on * the * western hills *.

In your example, David, as you say yourself, the question is whether it is the number of string quartets that is at issue: that Ravel composed only one of them, or whether it's what he did to the string quartet that matters i.e. he only composed it; he didn't play it or anything else.

The "other examples" you mention are just people not thinking particularly clearly - and we know what they mean, usually!

Sue

[David]

May 28, 2008 13:03:36 GMT Alan Palmer said:

Isn't a string quartet a group of four musicians who play stringed instruments?

It is, as in The Lindsay String Quartet, but it can also apply to a work for said group.

[Paul Doherty]

Misplaced only is a common bête noire, I think. Perhaps we should start a top ten? Just for fun, you understand, not because I think it matters ...

[goofy]

I don't know... between the subject and the verb or between the auxiliary and the main verb is a normal place for adverbs, and that's where many good writers put only. The prescription to place only immediately before the word it modifies seems to have been invented by Lowth.

Fowler defended the placement of only in He only died a week ago: "no better defence is perhaps possible than that it is the order that most people have always used & still used, & that, the risk of misunderstanding being chimerical, it is not worth while to depart from the natural. Remember that in speech there is not even the possibility of misunderstanding, because the intonation of died is entirely different if it, & not a week ago, is qualified by only; & it is fair that a reader should be supposed capable of supplying the decisive intonation where there is no temptation to go wrong about it."

[Dave]

Maurice Ravel only composed one string quartet

But most stringed instruments have four strings .

[Dave M]

> between the subject and the verb or between the auxiliary and the main verb is a normal place for adverbs <

And therefore? (I agree with Fowler's summary, but) I don't see that as a strong case for where to put the "only":

He drank his coffee quickly and spread his toast with marmalade so rapidly as to leave it all but bare sounds fine, and perhaps better than the "normal" way round. I think we often choose carefully where to put our adverbs, and get nuances of difference from doing so.

What Fowler says is fine for conversational English, but would cause havoc in anything with an intended contractual value.

[Pete]

I grant you that's correct for the violin family, but what about guitars (6- or 12-string), harps, pianos, harpsichords, banjos, &c?

[goofy]

May 28, 2008 15:03:38 GMT Dave M said:

> between the subject and the verb or between the auxiliary and the main verb is a normal place for adverbs <

And therefore? (I agree with Fowler's summary, but) I don't see that as a strong case for where to put the "only":

Because following the normal usage is the best advice, I think.

What Fowler says is fine for conversational English, but would cause havoc in anything with an intended contractual value.

Probably.

[Dave M]

> Because following the normal usage is the best advice, I think <

Indeed. That usually helps understanding, and gives a "normal" flavour to the discussion - but I'm challenging whether it's "normal" to place adverbs where you say it's normal to. When you do, it sounds all Germanic:

He so quickly drove up the drive that he hit the garage.
He very tenderly held her and stroked her hair.
He lost marks because he carelessly wrote the answers.

[Trevor]

May 28, 2008 15:04:52 GMT Pete said:

I grant you that's correct for the violin family, but what about guitars (6- or 12-string), harps, pianos, harpsichords, banjos, &c?

I've a feeling that the piano technically comes into the percussion family rather than the strings.

[goofy]

May 28, 2008 15:36:55 GMT Dave M said:

Indeed. That usually helps understanding, and gives a "normal" flavour to the discussion - but I'm challenging whether it's "normal" to place adverbs where you say it's normal to. When you do, it sounds all Germanic:

I see what you mean. It's a normal place for adverbs, but it's not the only place and it's not the preferred place for all adverbs.

[David]

I see what you mean. It's a normal place for adverbs, but it's not the only place and it's not the preferred place for all adverbs.

I agree - I'd rather have Ravel composed only one string quartet than Ravel composed one string quartet only.