simont: A picture of me in 2016 (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] simont at 08:05am on 18/07/2009
Depends on context! :-)

If you're talking about a specific X whose entire history of Ying (or not) you know, then certainly it seems to me that telling somebody "X has only Yed Zs" is liable to give the false impression that X has Yed at least one, or possibly at least two, Zs. Unless you're both mathematicians, in which case the implicit application of predicate logic semantics to English is a favourite form of entertainment.

If you're talking about general Xes ("for an X to participate in this activity they need to have only ever Yed Zs") then it could go either way, and probably someone else needs to clarify. ("Hang on, what if they haven't Yed at all?" "Oh, didn't think of that. Yes, that'd be fine too. What I really meant is that they should never have Yed a non-Z.")
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lnr: Halloween 2023 (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] lnr at 08:32am on 18/07/2009
Thankyou, your comment lets me happily tick false. I was almost happy to tick it anyway, given we're talking about English rather than logic, but a bit of me was tempted by the "it's meaningless" option. But no, it's not meaningless in English, and I could definitely see someone having the latter conversation.
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