What the fuck's up with "only"? The following two sentences seem to me significantly different:
(a) I only go to the mall on weekends.
(b) I go to the mall only on weekends.
Now, I understand that in ordinary conversation we accept a for b, allowing the pragmatics to render negligible the difference. But in written communication-- especially written communication that aspires to be precise-- it's best to reject a when b is meant. Or so I think. I'm dealing with a copyeditor who insists not only that a and b are equivalent, but that a is preferable to b!
Consider:
(c) The utilitarian only cares about the total sum of pleasure.
(d) The utilitarian cares about only the total sum of pleasure.
It seems to me that c is false, and d is true. It also seems to me that c states a "serious error of fact." But, hey, what do I know?
16 comments:
If (a) and (b) are the same, how would one say "The only thing I do on weekends is go to the mall" without having to use some roundabout locution like the one I just used? The reason we can use (a) for (b) in spoken conversation is because we can emphasize 'weekends' to get the point across.
Your copy editor sucks.
You should refer your copy editor to the discussion of only in sections 7.3 and 7.3.1 of ch. 6 of Huddleston and Pullum's Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (which is now, I'd say, the standard descriptive grammar). Their discussion is detailed and clear, and it carefully separates out the various potential ambiguities. But one must be prepared for the fact that sometimes people with weird prescriptivist beliefs are singularly impervious to reason.
The out of the blue readings are different. "I only walk on Saturday" has a reading where the speaker communicates that all she does is go for Saturday strolls. "I walk only on Saturday" communicates that of the times the speaker walks, it's only going to be on a Saturday.
So (c) has a reading where the utilitarian does nothing all day but care about pleasure, while (d) says that if the utilitarian cares about anything, that thing is going to be pleasure. So (d) is logically weaker than (c).
But, hey, what do I know?Let's see...stuff like logic, scope ambiguity, and how to write. Your copyeditor is in over his/her head.
My own take on this would be:
1) The difference between c and d would be lost on most readers, especially because the problematic reading is an unlikely one, and would take more emphasis than what is in c.
2) If I was editing someone's stuff and noticed the ambiguity, I probably wouldn't bother bringing it up, but
3) There is an ambiguity, so forcing a writer to use one of the two for prescriptive reasons is silly.
(a) Only copy-editors should fuck themselves.
(b) Copy-editors should only fuck themselves.
(c) Copy-editors should fuck only themselves.
(d) Copy-editors should fuck themselves only.
(c) and (d) both seem crap to me.
I object to describing a theory in terms of what its adherents "care" about.
so, anon, you don't 'care' about your values? you don't 'care' about the way you see the evaluative world to be structured?
what do you 'care' about?
This is VERY strange.
John Cogburn is correct, I think, about the [careful] reading. But, I would have expected a c-e to be hung up on not splitting infintives and, thus, to have insisted on b.
I don't want to be rude, but who the heck is this person (your c-e)??? Did you suggest your 'mall' alternative to make the point? Perhaps the distinction about what utilitarians care about was too subtle/obscure?
Hmm. Now I am rethinking.
The mall walking example turns on the temporal reference: I X only at Y times vs. I only X at Y times.
The utilitarianism eaxmple is not temporal: As only care about B vs. As care only about B.
So, perhaps there is less significance in the latter kind of case. On the other hand, I still expect a copy-editor to come down on the side of not splitting infinitives when there is no CLEAR difference in meaning.
Another relevant consideration: in American usage, 'I drink only on Fridays' is more often rendered as 'On Fridays, I only drink.' This makes the distinction from "I only drink on Fridays' a bit more clear.
Anon @10:45
I care about lots of things, and imagine utilitarians do also. But it's one thing to think that the basis for right and wrong only involves pleasure and pain, and quite another to only care about pleasure and pain.
-Anon from before
Never mind "only", I see lots of otherwise intelligent people who can't seem to get a grip on using "all" and negation together.
Many times I've heard sentences of the type "all the balls aren't red", meant to mean that some of the balls are red. I'm talking university educated people here, although clearly not students of logic.
ANON at May 4, 2009 5:36 PM:
I had a colleague [science dept] tell me there is no difference between these 2 claims:
"X means there is at least one Y."
"X means there is one Y."
I said I hoped his students would not be prescribing medicines.
Looks like our friend BL used to be a copy-editor: "...though Rega will only be teaching at Stanford for the next two years."
Does (c) mean that the utilitarian does nothing except for caring about the total sum of pleasures (in other words, the utilitarian doesn't breathe, eat), or does (c) mean that the utilitarian _merely_ cares about the total sum of pleasures (in other words, doesn't have a stronger attitude or a more active stance toward the total sum of pleasures)?
The second option sounds right to me.
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