As longtime readers know, I only write this column once a year � a column about the proper placement of �only.�
If you are paying attention, you will note that the foregoing sentence is a tricker. It should read, �I write this column only once a year� The rule is to place the �only� as closely as possible to the element the writer wishes to emphasize. Nothing will sharpen your prose more than a mastery of �only�
The standard example deals with a schoolyard affray. A bantamweight pugilist has struck his adversary in the proboscis. Let us rearrange the syntax:
�Only John hit Peter on the nose.� (Other boys may have hit Peter on the elbow, the eye and the ear, but John was the only one who hit him on the nose.)
�John only hit Peter on the nose.� (John didn�t stab him or bite him; he only hit him.)
�John hit only Peter on the nose.� (John may have hit Paul on the arm and George in the belly but Peter is the only one John hit on the nose.)
�John hit Peter only on the nose.� (John did not hit Peter anywhere else.)
Now to the real world: U.S. News & World Report carried a report last July on stem-cell research. Suddenly Congress and the White House were seriously discussing federal regulation of a form of mammalian reproduction. The editor was amazed. �Some things,� he said, �could only happen in Washington.�
How would you mend the broken syntax? You would heal the wounded sentence thus:
�Some things could happen only in Washington.�
Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post is one of the most gifted sportswriters in the business, but even this Boswell occasionally should consult a Dr. Johnson.
When the Dallas Cowboys trounced the Washington Redskins with running plays, Boswell fumbled his syntax:
�The Cowboys only threw eight passes.�
He should have consulted Mark Maske, who got it right �The Cowboys threw only eight passes.� Touchdown!
A year or so ago, monologist Victoria Delaney presented her �Late Nite Catechism� at a playhouse in West Palm Beach, Fla. In the show she kids the audience and pokes gentle fun at growing up in a Catholic school
Said a critic for the Palm Beach Post, �She only made fun of Palm Beach voters once.� In syntactical truth, the actress made fun of Palm Beach voters only once.
Now and then a copy editor knows a moment of triumph. Almost a year ago, the Associated Press moved an item from Las Vegas about a new Microsoft gambling game. As the item appeared in the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald, the game creates images �previously only seen in movies like �Toy Story.��
Across the river, an editor at the New Orleans Times-Picayune made two slight but beautiful changes in the same story. The machine, said the New Orleans editor, creates images �previously seen only in movies such as �Toy Story��
Some days it really does pay to get up.
James J Kilpatrick�s column is distributed by the Universal Press Syndicate.
