Does this make sense?
I could only help him when he was in trouble yesterday.
Is this sentence the same as: the only thing I could do was help him?
Top answer
Not unambiguously. Your sentence could mean that the only time you could help him was yesterday. "Only" is tricky even for native speakers.
- Not unambiguously.
- Your sentence could mean that the only time you could help him was yesterday.
- "Only" is tricky even for native speakers.
- Its position in the sentence often seems to go against the intended meaning, but very often that doesn't matter because we can effortlessly tell what you mean.
- Your sentence, though correct, uses a rather old-fashioned definition of "only", at least to my ear—you had to help him, you could do no other.
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Not unambiguously. Your sentence could mean that the only time you could help him was yesterday.
"Only" is tricky even for native speakers. Its position in the sentence often seems to go against the intended meaning, but very often that doesn't matter because we can effortlessly tell what you mean. Your sentence, though correct, uses a rather old-fashioned definition of "only", at least
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