# Grammar question - "one of the only people who understand(s)" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 24, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017 "2016-02-24T20:50:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/21 "2016-02-25T02:13:22Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Yes–why can’t the verb collocate with _people_? I.e.: > > _They are the people who understand. He is one of them._ Because it’s talking about Stephen in the original. Stephen…understands dates and times. Or, if you prefer: Stephen Colebourne is …one … who really understands dates and times. “perhaps” isn’t essential, and “of the only people on Earth” is a prepositional phrase functioning as an adjective describing Stephen. This computer is one of the only ones that wasn’t on sale. This board is one of the only ones that gives good grammar answers. “Wasn’t” and “gives” are singular, because “computer” is what “wasn’t” and “board” is what “gives”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/22 "2016-02-25T03:10:51Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I know exapno just argued against it but yes, the standard line is that prepositional phrases are ignored for the purposes of verb conjugation. The lengths to which you hold to that is your prerogative. To clarify: I argued against the notion that one must \*always \*ignore the prepositional phrase. In this particular case, ignoring it does indeed yield the correct answer. For advanced students: why is correct to write “ignoring it does indeed \*\*yield \*\*the correct answer” but also correct to write “ignoring it \*\*yields \*\*the correct answer”? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/23 "2016-02-25T03:20:31Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > For advanced students: why is correct to write “ignoring it does indeed \*\*yield \*\*the correct answer” but also correct to write “ignoring it \*\*yields \*\*the correct answer”? Because in “does yield”, does is doing the singular job while without it “yields” needs to. I probably didn’t explain that in proper grammarese, but am I close? It’s the, um, helping verb, in the first case. Do they call them helping verbs after second grade? ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/24 "2016-02-25T03:31:20Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > How about “these are the only cookies left”? Also nonsense? “These are the only cookies left” means “These are all of the cookies that are left”. So “This cookie is one of the only cookies left” means “This cookie is one of all the cookies that are left”. That’s not nonsense, but it’s tautological – it’s true by definition… everything in the universe is one of all the things in the category that it is one of. So “one of the only” is a phrase that _sounds_ like it means something (specifically, either “one of the few” or “one of only a few”), but it does not mean that… it doesn’t really mean anything more than “This X is an X.” ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/25 "2016-02-25T03:56:13Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > So “one of the only” is a phrase that _sounds_ like it means something (specifically, either “one of the few” or “one of only a few”), but it does not mean that… it doesn’t really mean anything more than “This X is an X.” Of course it means something! If the speaker intends it to mean “one of only a few” and it means that to a typical listener, then that is, indeed, what it means. It may be an awkward construction, but there are some fellows here who are bound to ask you why you think you get to declare what something means. I myself am a pedant and prescriptivist to the point of being a nuisance, and I’d still let it slide, at least in informal conversation. Good thing you weren’t involved in the long discussion we had here (or maybe you were) about the use of the expression “I could care less”, in which I took the opposite side because it’s just stretching colloquialism past the breaking point. Like when teenagers say something is “bad” to mean it’s good, or something is “sick” to mean whatever the hell wonderful thing it’s supposed to denote. I can’t stop them creating their in-group pseudo-dialects but I don’t have to like it. 😉 Oh, and to the OP, yes, singular, because the verb is clearly intended to refer back to Stephen Colebourne and not “people”. Here I agree for once with **Exapno Mapcase** , pedant though I am. The plural is also grammatically correct but changes the nuance of meaning in a way that is not usually intended, which is why it sounds odd. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/26 "2016-02-25T04:34:18Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > The rule can’t be consistently applied even if we try to interpret it consistently. For example: > > Of people who understand cakes, John is the foremost. > > Or: > > John stands over the only people who understand cakes. I wouldn’t say or write the former and in the second, the object of understand is people, not John. > [@WhyNot](#): > > Because in “does yield”, does is doing the singular job while without it “yields” needs to. > > I probably didn’t explain that in proper grammarese, but am I close? It’s the, um, helping verb, in the first case. Do they call them helping verbs after second grade? Auxiliary, I believe is the formal term. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/27 "2016-02-25T04:51:14Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > How about “these are the only cookies left”? Also nonsense? No, but “these are some of the only cookies left” would be. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/28 "2016-02-25T04:57:19Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Auxiliary, I believe is the formal term. Thanks! I literally got no English grammar education after second grade. They pulled me out for “accelerated learning” and creative writing. Most of what I know of grammar was gained from osmosis during a ridiculous amount of reading, and the rest from high school French. 😃 It makes it hard to explain things. I know what’s right because it feels right, but that’s not convincing to anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/29 "2016-02-25T06:30:34Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Because it’s talking about Stephen in the original. > > Stephen…understands dates and times. That’s simply your preferred parsing. Another perfectly legitimate parsing is that _Stephen is one of those people. Which people? The people who understand dates and times_. There’s no grammatical reason why the object of a preposition cannot itself be a noun phrase–_ **which itself has an adjective clause modifier** _. Happens all the time in English. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/30 "2016-02-25T06:38:08Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > No, but “these are some of the only cookies left” would be. I have, to be honest, no idea why you think so. There are only three cookies left. Here are two of them. The two are some of the three. So I have some of the only cookies left. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/31 "2016-02-25T06:39:23Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I wouldn’t say or write the former and in the second, the object of understand is people, not John. The object of understand is “cakes” in that sentence. Was that a typo? Did you mean subject? In that case, the subject is “who.” ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/32 "2016-02-25T06:42:42Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > “These are the only cookies left” means “These are all of the cookies that are left”. So “This cookie is one of the only cookies left” means “This cookie is one of all the cookies that are left”. That’s not nonsense, but it’s tautological – it’s true by definition… everything in the universe is one of all the things in the category that it is one of. So “one of the only” is a phrase that _sounds_ like it means something (specifically, either “one of the few” or “one of only a few”), but it does not mean that… it doesn’t really mean anything more than “This X is an X.” Not sure exactly of the relevance of those mostly-true observations. I say mostly-true because meaning doesn’t only consist in reference–it also consists in connotation and sense. So for example, there’s a sense in which the following two sentences mean the same thing: “This is one of the cookies left after the party,” and “This is one of the only cookies left after the party,” Both sentences would be true under all and exactly the same circumstances. That’s the referential meaning. But one would be more likely to say the second one if, in context, one were trying to emphasize (for example) how few cookies are left and how eating this one would reduce the number even more. Not so for the first one. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/33 "2016-02-25T07:09:05Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > The object of understand is “cakes” in that sentence. Was that a typo? Did you mean subject? In that case, the subject is “who.” I just realized what you mean–the antecedent of that “who” is “people.” Right, because the word “understand” is very clearly inside the prepositional phrase in that example. The thing about the OP’s sentence is that it’s grammatically ambiguous–the word "understand’ in that sentence could be interpreted as being either inside or outside the prepositional phrase, yielding a different conjugation depending on the case. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/34 "2016-02-25T07:28:08Z")
Neither is wrong for the reason the OP stated. It is unclear who the adjective clause “who really understand(s) dates and times” modifies “people” or “one of the people.” Either is possible; there is not general rule that prepositional phrases be discarded. Consider the following sentence: “John is not one of the people on Earth who really understand dates and times.” The adjective clause clearly modifies “people,” even though “people” is part of a prepositional phrase. I think the only reason we tend to prefer “understands” is because the subject of the entire sentence is singular, and either version of the phrase logically modifies the subject, even though which word it grammatically modifies is unclear. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/35 "2016-02-25T07:51:39Z")
Stephen Colebourne is perhaps one of the only people on Earth with real understanding of dates and times. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/36 "2016-02-25T07:58:17Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Neither is wrong for the reason the OP stated. It is unclear who the adjective clause “who really understand(s) dates and times” modifies “people” or “one of the people.” Either is possible; there is not general rule that prepositional phrases be discarded. Consider the following sentence: “John is not one of the people on Earth who really understand dates and times.” The adjective clause clearly modifies “people,” even though “people” is part of a prepositional phrase. > > I think the only reason we tend to prefer “understands” is because the subject of the entire sentence is singular, and either version of the phrase logically modifies the subject, even though which word it grammatically modifies is unclear. I agree, but if we assume that the base structure of the sentences is:[ul]_Stephen Colebourne is perhaps one who really understands dates and times._ [/ul]then the prepositional phrase (which is omitted above) takes on a particular meaning:[ul] _of the only people on Earth_ [/ul]namely, _that there are few people remaining on Earth_. Perhaps this is taken from some kind of science fiction story where that is the case. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/37 "2016-02-25T08:18:23Z")
> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#): > > Stephen Colebourne is perhaps one of the only people on Earth with real understanding of dates and times. Thank you, but I’m not sure what the point of this is. The OP isn’t looking for another way to write the sentence. There are any number of alternatives we could easily come up with, but that’s just evading the whole purpose of this thread, which is to address the _specific syntax_ in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/38 "2016-02-25T08:49:27Z")
Alright. Put me in with the “understands” crowd. **Inner Stickler** ’s post #3, and **WhyNot** ’s post #21 pretty much say what went through my brain when I read the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/39 "2016-02-25T13:00:35Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > I agree, but if we assume that the base structure of the sentences is:[ul]_Stephen Colebourne is perhaps one who really understands dates and times._ > [/ul]then the prepositional phrase (which is omitted above) takes on a particular meaning:[ul] > _of the only people on Earth_ > [/ul]namely, _that there are few people remaining on Earth_. > > Perhaps this is taken from some kind of science fiction story where that is the case. Damn. Good point. I missed that. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017/40 "2016-02-25T14:51:44Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Both sentences would be true under all and exactly the same circumstances. That’s the referential meaning. But one would be more likely to say the second one if, in context, one were trying to emphasize (for example) how few cookies are left and how eating this one would reduce the number even more. Not so for the first one. That would be true if “only” was a stronger way of saying “few”, the way “outstanding” would be a stronger way of saying “good”. But it’s not. The word “only” doesn’t establish rarity or scarcity. It is merely establishing exclusivity. Some people may infer that “only” implies rarity, but that’s often a false assumption. > **[Definition of ONLY](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/only)** > > unquestionably the best : peerless; alone in a class or category : sole; having no brother or sister… See the full definition If I had 3 red balls and 3,000 green balls in a room, I could point to the green balls and say, “These are the only green balls in this room.” And that is accurate. I am saying none of the other balls in the room are green. Now, the green balls in this room are not rare, in fact they outnumber the other kind by 1,000 to 1. I could correspondingly point to the red balls and say, “These are the only red balls in this room.” While the red balls are actually rare in this case, my statement has failed to establish or even really imply that the red balls are rare. If I point to 3 red balls and you see a pile of green balls next to them, you could infer by observation only that the red balls are rare, but that inference comes only from synthesizing what you can see and what I’ve said. So attempting to use “only” to emphasize the rarity of something, as opposed to using an adjective like “few”, is a mistake and improper English on its own. Just as in my “balls in the room” example, to properly convey something’s rarity you need to include further context. The example sentences in the original post, and many other sample sentences in this thread fail to do so. That is why it comes across as intuitively wrong by myself and some other posters in this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-one-of-the-only-people-who-understand-s/747017.md?page=3)