Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I'm One of the Only Prescriptivists Who . . .

A colleague wrote a caption saying that an object was one of the only things recovered from a New Orleanian's house after Katrina hit, and another colleague gently pointed out that "one of the only" makes no sense. It should, he said, be "one of the few."

I disagree. It would be one thing if only always referred to one and only one thing, but that's not the case. Webster's New World defines only as "alone of its or their kind," and nobody objects to "only two people . . ." and the like. If "only two people" have done something, wouldn't one of those people be one of only two people, or one of the only people, who have done it?

11 comments:

Dr. Zoom said...

I'm not buying it. To me, New World's plural reference is to a collective. Besides ... why champion the cause of blurring the distinctiveness of only's "accepted" definition when there's no doubt about few?

Bill said...

Well put, LL, but ...

I was about to say that the "few" meaning of "only" is obvious, the same way it's obvious that "quality merchandise" doesn't mean "low-quality merchandise," but then it occurred to me that "one of the only" has a useful non-"few" meaning:

If you're not among the only 70 percent of Americans who know the year in which the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, you're probably not reading this site.

Seventy percent isn't "few," but it sure is "only."

Bill said...

Well, maybe I'm writing an editorial! We're arguing about the grammar here.

Petula said...

I love your blog. I do not have a specific comment regarding your post, but simply wanted to say: "Thanks."

Would love for you to visit my blog... although I am a little nervous about that. You know, the whole copy editor thing! It has nothing to do with writing, but you may enjoy it.

Leonard said...

In my unasked-for opinion, the use of "only" in the first example is fine since it is describing a number of objects. In the second example, however, "only" is being used to describe the frequency of poor performances by a relief pitcher. To my ear, using either "only" or "few" in that manner is dodgy at best. The reporter should have written something on the order of "Rausch pitched poorly, which has been rare for him over the last four weeks."

Leonard said...

I don't understand what the problem is with "one of the only" in the Katrina story context. I understand the criticism to be that it is not specific enough, but what was the caption writer supposed to do? Count all the objects recovered for an exact ratio? "The tuning fork was one of 732 items recovered from the house." Since the original set of objects undoubtedly numbered in the thousands, doesn't using "only" convey the notion that not many are left? "Few" might convey that idea as well, but does it convey it any better?

"Only," being made up of a subset of the letters in "lonely," has a certain sadness about it that that "few" doesn't. And since a sense of desolation is probably what the subject of the photo felt, I think that using "only" was a good choice, expressive and correct.

Ellie said...

I'm coming late to this party, but I agree with LL. Unless "only" is quantified, I don't think it makes sense.

"One of only a few belongings" would be fine. "The only belongings she managed to salvage were...." would be fine. "One of the only" just sounds clumsy. In beninsalem's example, "Rob is one of the only miners to make it out alive" doesn't tell you enough. How many miners made it out alive? Three? Three hundred? At least "one of only a few" would give you some kind of indication, and (as mupu says) wouldn't leave the reader wondering what isn't being said.

Stuart said...

I agree with Bill also.

"One of the only thing" would be wrong, "One of the only things" is right.

dave said...

People are using very contorted logic to make this expression work. In reality its meaningless.

One of (the) few is clear and succinct and unambiguous, and no one would argue against it.

Bill said...

At the risk of being forced to turn in my prescriptivist card, I have to ask: Where does the burden of proof lie? Sure, I've shot down widely used expressions whose meaning is clear, but are such expressions guilty until proved innocent?

Unknown said...

But the only need not be few. I can say: Only the inexperienced who haven't bothered to read the manual press the wrong button.
They however may be the majority.