You know, I know that, and I thought about quoting it, but I thought it would be less legible.

What our fine friend Drakino wrote is that he has had a cell phone for no more than a few years, without regard to any other phones.

What, I assume, he meant to say was that he had had no phone other than a cell phone for a few years. (And, actually, to be totally pedantic, the way I put it means that he had no other possessions at all, but I think we can infer from context that it applied only to phone ownership.)

The difference being the placement of the word ``only'' and what it modifies. Placing it before the adverbial prepositional phrase ``for a few years'' modifies that phrase, so that it limits it to mean ``for no more than a few years'' (give or take). Placing it before the noun phrase ``a cell phone'' modifies that phrase to mean ``no more than a cell phone''.

Of course, we knew what he meant, because we know that it's illegal to telemarket to a cell phone (to verb unnecessarily), but without that piece of knowledge, we can't necessarily draw that conclusion. But, in my opinion, ``you know what I mean'' isn't really a good excuse. (Nor is it one to which I'd accuse our fine friend Drakino of resorting.)

Edit: And to respond to your edit, we have different ideas of what he meant, which I think substantiates my point, unless he did, in fact, mean what you say, but then, I think, what his point was becomes nebulous.


Edited by wfaulk (24/09/2003 14:59)
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Bitt Faulk