Grammar itself is subject to more than one interpretation.
What most people are used to is the definition used in pedagogy. Grammar is taught as a series of rules to ensure proper English. There is a right way and a wrong way to write a sentence. There is proper English and improper English.
When professionals refer to grammar, however, they mean the basic structure of the language as used and understood by native speakers. Spoken English is vastly different from written English and from formal English. Nevertheless, native speakers frequently write sentences that are common in spoken English. Grammar will assign a role to every word in those sentences irregardless, so to speak.
The reason that spoken English can be normally understood despite its lack of formal precision is that it is in the context of a conversation. The listener would know from previous cues whether “Stephen Colebourne is perhaps one of the only people on Earth who really understands dates and times” is intended to single out Stephen Colebourne or the others. Written English creates confusion by its ability to abstract a sentence out of context.
Most of high school English teaches how to apply the rules to create sentences that minimize confusion when read in miniature, isolated worlds of their own. That’s why a rule like “ignore the prepositional phrase” exists. The English language cannot be tamed that easily. The speaker’s or writer’s intent must be taken into account, and intent is normally synonymous with context. Or, in your post, by inferring from observation.
“Only” meaning “few” stops being a “mistake and improper English” in that context. It becomes normal, everyday English. Formal English is the oddity in the real world, not the standard everyone must always apply.
You’re still talking about referential meaning. I am talking about connotations, as I said. You said it’s false that “only” implies rarity. You are correct. But it is plainly true that it often connotes rarity in particular contexts–as you know, really, since you know enough to point out that people think there’s an implication is there!
That line of reasoning is certainly familiar to me, and I can see the merit in it up to a point. And English is certainly full of phrases that have a meaning beyond the standard dictionary definitions of the individual words. But I have to admit that this particular one grates on me… it seems like sloppy English and sloppy thinking… not exactly an eggcorn, but leaning in that same direction. Or kind of like “My head literally asploded.” I guess if that one gets common enough, we won’t be allowed to criticize it either… :o
Thanks, this is what I was getting at with the last line of the OP about how maybe “only” makes a difference. (But you said it more clearly than I did.) Let’s replace “only” with “few” to avoid controversy.
“Stephen is one of the few people on Earth who understands dates and times” still sounds right to my ear… I want it to be right and was happy that it seemed to be the majority view in this thread. But “the few people on Earth” doesn’t make sense as a clause, unless 7 billion is a few.
“Stephen is one of the people on Earth who understands dates and times” doesn’t have this problem, just because I omitted “few”.
I guess one way to look at it is to reexamine the sentence, “Stephen is one of the people on Earth who understands dates and times.” Obviously, the part that says “one of the people on Earth” is redundant because almost every human being at this moment is on Earth. So if you cut out that redundant part, which doesn’t change the sentence in any substantive way, you end up with:
