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In the BBC website Learning English a person gives some examples of the phrase "clean up one's act" and one example is:

I used to drink a lot of alcohol but when I got ill, I decided to clean up my act and now I only drink cola!

My question is: is it correct to use only before the verb it modifies?

Generally we should place “only" next to the noun, subject, verb, or phrase we're trying to modify.

So, I think it should be like I drink only cola. Am I right?

And is the sentence I drink cola only right grammatically?

I saw in many shopping malls the price was written as 1000₹ only etc. Is it right to say like this? Please explain to me the grammar relative to this.

P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica
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Omkar Reddy
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    Writing prices like "1000₹ only" is a very specifically Indian English thing to do. You will not see that done in any other country, but you will see phrasing like "Now only $29.95!", implying that it used to be more but has now been reduced. – stangdon Aug 30 '16 at 16:59
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    The focusing modifier "only" is sometimes not too fussy about where it goes relative to its focus. You can certainly say "I drink only cola" (or "cola only") where "only" is modifying "cola". And there is nothing at all wrong with "I only drink cola" where "only" is modifying not just the noun "cola", but the whole verb phrase "drink cola". It's grammatically fine and quite unambiguous.. – BillJ Aug 30 '16 at 17:08
  • @BillJ I always confuse About this usage. In "I only drink cola" isn't "only" modifying the verb drink? Am I wrong? Are the sentences “John only cooks meat for his family." and "John cooks only meat for his family" have same meaning? I think former means "John only cooks but doesn't eat" And the latter means "John cooks only meat but not vegetables etc". Correct me if I'm wrong. And similarly are the sentences "He has only a son" and "He has a son only" similar? Please explain. – Omkar Reddy Aug 30 '16 at 17:32
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    No, it is modifying the whole verb phrase "drink cola". As I said "only" is sometimes not too fussy about its location. The most important thing is to avoid potential confusion, so a little care is needed. In "I only drink cola", "only" is not adjacent to its focus "cola", but there can be no real confusion about the meaning. In your "cook" and "son" examples, careful placing is probably necessary to avoid ambiguity. There is an unofficial 'rule' which says that the modifier should either be adjacent to its focus or immediately before the element containing the it. – BillJ Aug 30 '16 at 17:59
  • @BillJ Thank you very much. But if you don't mind could you please explain to me the meanings of last two sentences I.e. "He has only a son" and "He has a son only". – Omkar Reddy Aug 30 '16 at 18:00
  • "He has a son only" sounds odd and non-fluent to this American English speaker. "He has only a son" or "He only has a son" sound much more normal. – stangdon Aug 30 '16 at 18:16
  • @stangdon I don't know whether it's right to ask questions in comments or not. Does "He has only a son" mean "he has only one son and no daughters" or "he has one son and might have daughters also". If any one of this meaning is wrong how can I express that correctly? – Omkar Reddy Aug 30 '16 at 18:26
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    It's out of context, but the salient meaning of each is the same, i.e. that he has a son, but no daughter(s). – BillJ Aug 30 '16 at 18:34
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    "He has only a son" does indeed mean "He has but one child, and that a male." The special usage in Indian English of "only" as an intensifer or near-interjection with the sense of and how! may be part of your thinking here. In colloquial IE, "He has a son only" could mean something quite distinct from "He has but one child, and that a male." – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Aug 30 '16 at 19:54
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    Possible duplicate of "I only teach you" vs. "I teach only you" vs. "I teach you only". See also http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/8979/does-the-position-of-only-give-a-different-meaning-to-the-sentence, http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/44956/3-sentences-with-only, etc etc etc etc – Alan Carmack Aug 31 '16 at 00:27
  • @Anonymous By the way, you will notice that in your question "My doubt is" was edited to "My question is". "Doubt" is not a synonym for "question" in English. Read your dictionary entries, and their example usages, carefully to understand the difference. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Aug 31 '16 at 00:50

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