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For example I want to say:

I slept only 5 hours last night

or

I only slept 5 hours last night.

Which one is correct?

user5369
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  • Neither is incorrect. – J.R. Apr 23 '14 at 22:58
  • And what sounds more natural to you? On websites I often see only second variant. That's why I started to think that the first one is incorrect. – user5369 Apr 23 '14 at 23:06
  • @user5369 - it's context-dependent. In the example you gave, the difference is practically negligible. Yet: I only wish I knew the answer! That's much more natural than I wish only I knew the answer! – J.R. Apr 24 '14 at 01:01

2 Answers2

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Both are technically correct but there is a slight difference what the speaker is communicating.

I slept only 5 hours last night.

Here, only places the emphasis on '5' so the speaker is pointing out they slept 5 hours instead of their usual 8.

I only slept 5 hours last night.

Here, only emphasizes 'slept 5 hours' so the speaker is primarily communicating they did not get a full night's rest because it was only 5 hours.

For both, the implication is the speaker is tired or unrested.

DTRT
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Only sticklers would find fault with your sentence number two. That's because it could--repeat, could--mean "I am the only one who got five hours sleep."

Perhaps 99 percent of people, upon hearing sentence number two would understand that the only emphasizes how little sleep you got, since the normal number of hours of sleep is seven or eight hours (though there is a great deal of variation among people as to how much sleep they need; some need less, some need more).

There's a famous song which was popular long before my time entitled

"I Only Have Eyes For You."

I suppose the words could be transposed a bit and still say the same thing without any sacrifice in meaning or style, as in

"I Have Eyes For Only You,"

but pretty much everyone understands the person saying the words (namely, "I only have eyes for you") is "gaga" over the other person and has eyes for only her or him. Very rare indeed would be the person who thought that the person saying the words is the only person who has eyes for him or her. Hey, if he or she is attractive, maybe more than one person has eyes for him or her.

There may be a situation or two in which the careless placement of only could cause misunderstanding, but I'd be hard pressed to come up with even one!

rhetorician
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