Talk:only

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RFV adj sense 2:

1. Alone in a category.

   He is the only doctor for miles.

   The only people in the stadium were the fans: no players, coaches, or officials.

   That was the only time I went to Turkey.

2. Singularly superior; the best.

   He is the only trombonist to recruit.

   • The template Template:rfdate does not use the parameter(s):

     2=and other bibliographic particulars

     Please see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.(Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     Motley's the only wear.

It seems to me that the "trombonist" example for sense 2 does not illustrate anything different from sense 1, i.e. that that person alone should be recruited. Yes, the statement as a whole may imply that that person is superior, but "only" does not itself mean this, or so it seems to me. I do not understand the Shakespeare quote. If sense 2 does exist I think we need a clearer example. Mihia (talk) 19:24, 1 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

The sense is real.

MWOnline has, as first definition, "unquestionably the best : peerless

is convinced that his team is the only one"

“only”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC. had, as fourth definition, "single in degree of excellence; special"

Oxford has, as a subsense, "Alone deserving consideration.

‘it's simply the only place to be seen these days’"

AHD has, as second def, "Most suitable of all; superior or excellent

This is the only way to cook a good steak.

The AHD example appeals to me as not being readily subsumed under our first definition, ways to cook a good steak not being a natural category, though certainly construable as a category. DCDuring (talk) 20:45, 1 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

Also, the older cites seem to support a definition not quite the same as the way we use only now. Peerless and special seem somewhat different to me. DCDuring (talk) 20:48, 1 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

To me, the function of "only" in "This is the only way to cook a good steak" seems the same as that in "He is the only doctor for miles". Out of all the possible ways/doctors, only one satisfies the requirement. You could just as well say "This is the only way to mess up cooking a steak". Even in "This is the only way to cook a steak", or other examples such as "it's simply the only place to be seen these days", the sense of "superior" or "best" is in my opinion conveyed as a result of an implied statement of objective, rather than by the word "only" itself. Mihia (talk) 21:58, 1 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

It did subsequently occur to me that "This is the only way to cook a good steak" can be interpreted in two ways. In the first interpretation, "good" is a explicit statement of the desired cooking objective. This is the way I naturally read it. In the second interpretation, "good" describes the type of steak before it is cooked. In this case there is an implied statement of cooking objective ("if you want to ...", "in order to ..." etc.). Mihia (talk) 22:40, 1 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

I usually defer to professional lexicographers' assertion of a definition, though I may want to reword it; label it obsolete, archaic, or dated; or qualify it with a context label. I am also loathe to rely on interpretations that require additional context not in the usage example. It is usually easier to distinguish definitions when the collocations for the definitions are sharply different. Sadly, it is hard to produce sharply different sets of collocations for a word like only without a well-annotated corpus with KWIC display software.

IMO the only doctor for miles would usually mean that there was not another doctor for miles, though it could mean "the best doctor in the area". Simlarly, This is the only way to cook a good steak. probably means "no other way of cooking does justice to a good steak ("piece of meat")", though it could mean "there is no other way of cooking that leads to a good steak." The interpretation that there exists no other way (besides the one just mentioned) to cook a good steak., which would be definition 1, is quite implausible. DCDuring (talk) 02:07, 2 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, I'm afraid I disagree. I see two ways to interpret the "steak" sentence, both of which are definition 1. I do not agree that definition 2 applies. Mihia (talk) 10:28, 6 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 03:15, 3 July 2019 (UTC)Reply