The word is “Only”.

Professor Ernest Brennecke of Columbia is credited with inventing  a sentence that can be made to have eight different meaning by placing ONE WORD in all possible positions in the sentence:


“I hit him in the eye yesterday”.

The word is “Only”.

The Message:


1.     Only I hit him in the eye yesterday. (No one else did)

2.     I only hit him in the eye yesterday. (Did not slap him)

3.     I hit only him in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit others)

4.     I hit him only in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit outside the eye)

5.     I hit him in only the eye yesterday. (Not other organs)

6.     I hit him in the only eye yesterday. (He doesn’t have another eye)

7.     I hit him in the eye only yesterday. (Not today)

8.     I hit him in the eye yesterday only. (Did not wait for today)
This is the beauty and complexity of the English language.

Languages in my trail...

Languages in my trail...

Interesting fact of my ancestral trail, which is little complex.

Father’s ancestral trail - My Dad’s Mom was Kannadiga from Mysore, who settled in Bangalore around 60 Years back. She got married to a Tamilian from Bangalore (Shivajinagar - Mudaliar street), (Mudaliar – who had converted to Christianity after praying to Mother Mary for curing some illness). Is my Dad’s mother tongue, Tamil/Kannada? But he used to speak Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu, and of course English. (His dialect was awesome as of that origin, I have admired it. He had certifications in these languages from School)

Mother’s ancestral trail - My Mom’s Mom was Kannadiga from Bangalore, She got married to a Tamilian from Chennai (then Madras)  and got settled in Salem. Is my Mom’s mother tongue, Tamil/Kannada? She knows Tamil and English.

We end up speaking in Tamil at home, and also sometimes in Kannada & English.

Coming to me, I know English, Tamil (only to speak), Kannada (Studied for 14 years*), Hindi (Studied for 7 years*), Telugu (learnt watching movies can converse with little difficulty) and finally Malayalam can understand but can’t speak as the Mallu’s for that I have to stay in Kerala for 5 years (Haven’t got a chance).

*Though studied for so many years, I still struggle in these languages, and not at all good at any of the above languages mentioned. Not even computer languages. J