The prescriptivists are on my last nerve. Some of them really believe that there is something wrong with this sentence:
(1) One of the only things I liked about living in Ottawa was the strong film community.
Reasonable readers, can you find the error in (1)? The construction that “doesn’t convey any information”, the one that Richard Lederer calls a “strange and illogical expression”, the one Robert Hartwell Fiske cites as “further evidence that people scarcely know what their words mean”? Give up? It’s one of the only!
Oh, you didn’t find that to be illogical? You thought you got some information out of those words? Well then, congratulations; you’re a normal speaker of English. Honestly, I couldn’t see what could the problem with one of the only possibly be. Well, let’s look at Lederer’s argument against it:
“This strange and illogical expression began showing up a few years ago, and English took a step backward when it did. The expression has been defended on the basis that it is no worse than only two, because only means ‘one’ and only two is oxymoronic. A specious argument! It’s like saying that robbing a bank is okay because it’s no worse than robbing a jewelry store. Moreover, only in the sense of ‘only two’ does not mean ‘one’; it means ‘no more than.’ There is no meaning of only that fits with one of the only.“
Well, that’s a kick in the gut of the facts — three kicks, in fact. Kick the first is the claim that one of the only started showing up a few years ago. Google Books reports it in two books around 1770, in The Dramatic Censor and The Sale of Authors, and reports hundreds of uses throughout the nineteenth century. It’s more than a few years old, that’s for sure.
Kick the second is the idea that any reasonable person defends one of the only by noting that only two is oxymoronic. I sure don’t, and I don’t understand who would. There is nothing oxymoronic, nothing contradictory about the construction. Only two is completely clear, comprehensible, standard, and logical — hundreds of pre-1800 usages of only two in Google Books attest to this.
Kick the third is Lederer’s definition of only. Only two does not mean “no more than two” in standard usage. If it meant “no more than two”, then (2) would be a totally acceptable sentence.
(2) *The cyclops has only two eyes.
With Lederer’s definition (2) is fine, because a cyclops has only one eye, and one is no more than two. But a quick poll of the only two people in the apartment at the moment revealed that (2) is utterly unacceptable; clearly Lederer’s definition is insufficient. The real definition of only in only two is something along the lines of “exactly”, but with the crucial additional implicature that this is a smaller number than expected. Violating this implicature makes a sentence sound weird, as with (3b):
(3a) I was sad when only two people showed up at my cats’ wedding.
(3b) #I was sad when only one thousand people showed up at my cats’ wedding.
Now, the fact that one gets this implicature, that only two sounds so much better than only one thousand, ought to suggest that there is logic underlying the construction. This, coupled with Lederer’s crummy definition of only, should lead a reader to be skeptical of his claim that no meaning of only can fit in one of the only. I am curious as to what Lederer thinks the definitions of only are.
So what does one of the only mean? What happens if we follow one critic’s request to “parse it if you will, and see what you get”? Let’s look at the example in (1). The only things I liked about living in Ottawa is a noun phrase, identifying the set of things the speaker liked about living in Ottawa, noting that this set is the complete set, and implying that it’s an awfully small set. That’s what the quantifier only means, that’s what it’s meant for hundreds of years. One of modifies a noun phrase, selecting one member of that set. The two combined, as they are in (1), pick out a single member of the set of all things the speaker liked about living in Ottawa. So what exactly were we supposed to see when we parsed this? That it works? I’m fine with that.
There’re a lot more arguments that one of the only makes sense, and Jan Freeman has a wonderful column with a few of them. Notably, Freeman points out that one of the only is attested cross-linguistically, further destroying the notion that one of the only is somehow illogical. So in the end, I have to ask this of the prescriptivists: Do you really have nothing better to do in your lives than to ignore the well-known meanings of words so that you get to call other people stupid? Are you really unable to think of a better pastime than claiming that a reasonable, well-worn construction is illogical and incomprehensible? Are you really so committed to those goals that you’re unwilling to comprehend an easily comprehensible construction?
Or as I screamed into my computer after reading this junk: Why are you spending more effort trying to misunderstand someone than trying to understand them?
Summary: Prescriptivists insistently grouse that people don’t think enough when they write, but prescriptivists seem just as likely not to think when writing. Case in point: the arguments against one of the only are positively absurd, based off of a wanton misinterpretation of what only means, and completely independent of historical usage in English and other languages. Of course one of the only is fine, a fact that has been known since 1770.
12 comments
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March 31, 2009 at 9:55 am
Ana
Can you pleaseeee help me?
Hello, my name is Ana and I’m from Brazil. I saw one of your articles about contractions, and I have a question about it. I’m writing here because I don’t know if you can see a comment in an old post…
I’d like to know which is the correct form of the “and” contraction. Is it ‘N, or N’? And why? Someone told me that is ‘N, so if it is, why in the band’s name Gun’s N’ Roses, it comes after the N? Sorry for my english…
March 31, 2009 at 9:56 am
Karen
If I were writing something formal enough that I felt the need to proofread it, I would probably change “one of the only” to “one of the few.” Howerver, “one of the only” doesn’t bother me it all. It justs feels a little informal.
March 31, 2009 at 11:02 am
Bill Walsh
Even I, evil prescriptivist that I am, don’t see a problem with “one of the only.” If only three people do something, one of them is one of the only people who do it.
But you have to realize that there is some value in “trying to misunderstand” if you’re an editor looking to smooth potential roadblocks for a wide audience of readers, each of whom will read with different eyes.
March 31, 2009 at 11:34 am
matt
i would’ve gone to your cats’ wedding, but you didn’t invite me.
March 31, 2009 at 2:47 pm
The Ridger
If the apostrophe stands for a missing letter – or the place where missing letters were* – then it “should” be ‘n’ . However, the standard is n’ – the N is pronounced closely enough to an’ that it works.
Really, though, the point is to make it shorter to write, so only one apostrophe is used to mark that it’s a contraction.
And one should always bear in mind that for trademarks and names, the “rules” are often tossed.
* This is why some people used to write “won’t” as “wo’n't” …
April 1, 2009 at 12:08 pm
The Ridger
ps – Unless they never say “The only people to complain” or “the only people who say this” they are (surprise!) hypocrites looking for things to complain about.
April 1, 2009 at 12:13 pm
The Ridger
pps (because Lederer really annoys me) “Moreover, only in the sense of ‘only two’ does not mean ‘one’; it means ‘no more than.’ There is no meaning of only that fits with ‘one of the only’.“”
Really? “One of the no more than [two/four] things” doesn’t make sense? Really, Mr Lederer? Out of your own mouth you are condemned!
April 1, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Gabe
Ana: The Ridger’s right. The choice of apostrophe(s) is highly variable; for instance, it’s Guns N’ Roses, but Eat ‘N Park. I’d be reluctant to say that either is more standard than the other.
Bill Walsh: Thanks — that’s a great point. Editors do have to read everything with a purposefully contrarian eye, for the good of both writer and reader. I certainly do that, and having worked with garden path sentences so much, my eye is absurdly contrarian. It seems like the sign of a good editor is knowing how far to take the contrariness, and stopping before it becomes Lederer-ish.
matt: I think we both remember how you behaved at my iguana’s bat mitzvah, and I think that should explain why your invitation got lost in the mail.
Ridger: Thanks both for the apostrophe explanation ‘n’ the postscripts. I hadn’t even noticed that Lederer’s very definition worked where he said it couldn’t.
April 5, 2009 at 11:03 am
Timothy Hadley
As Bill’s comment above correctly states, the word “only” does not mean only “just one”; it has more than one possible meaning, one of which is essentially as a synonym for “just” or “few,” as in “there are only three people here” or “there are just three people here.” The same meaning clearly applies to the expression “one of the only.”
It is difficult to understand why the prescriptivists, including the skillful Richard Lederer, would not see this more clearly.
May 4, 2009 at 10:53 am
Gabe
Timothy: Sorry for the long delay in responding, but I think I have an idea. Perhaps it is because it’s difficult to state that meaning of “only” without saying that it means essentially the same thing as “few”? Prescriptivists tend to adhere pretty strongly to the notion that there are never two ways of saying the same thing, so saying that “only” means the same thing as “few”, even if only in one situation, must be wrong.
But in light of the overwhelming evidence of “only” functioning like “few”, I’d think you’d have to be pretty dogmatically committed to that position to argue that.
July 6, 2009 at 6:51 am
MikeyC
But you have to realize that there is some value in “trying to misunderstand” if you’re an editor looking to smooth potential roadblocks for a wide audience of readers, each of whom will read with different eyes.
How many readers have had a problem with “one of the only” here? Maybe most editors have lost touch with just how well or widely-read most readers are. The readers I know are all quite flexible people, linguistically speaking.
October 12, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Abram
‘One of the few’ would be clearer, I think. ‘Only’, like ’sole’, denote one. However, they can be used in relation to more than one if the two or more items in question are treated as a set.