Thursday, December 17, 2009

The position of 'only' helps to convey different meanings

When we write sentences, the placement of certain words such as only and merely makes our them convey different meanings.

Let us look at some examples.

1 Only she waited for me at the bus stop. [She is the one waiting for me. All my friends had not come.]
2 I paid only ten ringgit for this book. [I paid exactly ten ringgit and no more than that.]
3 They only sat there the whole morning. [They just sat there and did not do anything else.]
4 I only advised him what to do. [I did the work of advising and did not do more than that]
5 I saw him only just now. [I caught sight of him as recently as a moment ago.]
6 He bought his handset only last year. [He purchased his mobile phone as recently as a year ago.]

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