Something that irks the living hell out of me is the improper use of grammar. I have a tendency to actually, involuntarily twitch when I read, “alot” and “someone that”. Today, we’re going to focus on “only” and “just”. Apparently the proper use of these words has fallen into some dark abyss somewhere and only the most hardy grammar adventurers know how.
When using words such as “only” or “just”, it should be placed before the number or action you’re about to quote. So instead of saying, “I only got one hour of sleep”, you should say, “I got only one hour of sleep”. To say you “only got one hour” would translate to something like GETTING the time, but nothing else. So, maybe you were given that hour, yes, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you slept in that hour.
BUT THEN, OF COURSE, there’s the point of using the verb “to get” in place of other, proper verbs. In this instance, we can replace “I got only one hour of sleep” with “I slept for only one hour”, thereby using less words, being more correct with proper grammar and syntax and coming off as entirely more intelligent, even if you really are not.
Another example – “I only jumped once” versus “I jumped only once”. The former implies that I jumped, but did nothing more. The latter implies that, while I may have done other things any number of times, the number of times I jumped was just once.
MiseryFields 