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> Slow lorises are one of the world’s only venomous mammals (nytimes.com) a better title might be Slow lorises are one of the world’s few venomous mammals (n

by Cactus2018 6y ago

> Slow lorises are one of the world’s only venomous mammals (nytimes.com) a better title might be Slow lorises are one of the world’s few venomous mammals (nytimes.com)

smegcicle 6y ago
"one of the only" implies more extreme scarcity than "one of the few", so unless there is some other grammatical consideration I'm missing, saying "one of the only mammals" seems to point more to there being only a handful of species (less than a dozen in total?), while "one of the few mammals" might imply that we're talking about there being few such individual creatures around (which while probably also true I don't think is meant as the focus).
- Arnavion 6y ago
  Literally taken, "one of the only" is an oxymoron. They're either "the only" (no "one of") venomous mammal because there are no others, or there are others in which case they're "one of the few" or "one of the many" depending how many others there are. At any rate, there are a bunch of search results for "one of the only" saying it's a neologism with the same meaning as "one of the few". So we're probably stuck with it now, just like we're stuck with "begs the question" used to mean "raise the question" and "two times longer" used to mean "two times as long".
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pushrax 6y ago
    "leverage" used as a verb bugs me the most. The "-age" suffix is clearly established as a way to form a noun, in this case with the base verb "lever". If we treat "leverage" as a verb, "leverageage" is valid.
    - gweinberg 6y ago
      "Lever" is already a noun."Lever" is the tool, "leverage" is what you get by using the tool.
      - pushrax 6y ago
        You can debate whether "leverage" comes from the noun or verb form of "lever" (which both exist, and the "-age" pattern is used for both nouns and verbs), but the main point is that "leverage" used as a verb breaks prior usage of "-age" in exactly the way I described. "leverage" has been used as a noun for centuries, but as a verb for only decades. It's a recent neologism.
        ncmncm 6y ago
        I.e. a neologism.

> Slow lorises are one of the world’s only venomous mammals (nytimes.com) a better title might be Slow lorises are one of the world’s few venomous mammals (nytimes.com)

smegcicle 6y ago

"one of the only" implies more extreme scarcity than "one of the few", so unless there is some other grammatical consideration I'm missing, saying "one of the only mammals" seems to point more to there being only a handful of species (less than a dozen in total?), while "one of the few mammals" might imply that we're talking about there being few such individual creatures around (which while probably also true I don't think is meant as the focus).

Arnavion 6y ago
Literally taken, "one of the only" is an oxymoron. They're either "the only" (no "one of") venomous mammal because there are no others, or there are others in which case they're "one of the few" or "one of the many" depending how many others there are. At any rate, there are a bunch of search results for "one of the only" saying it's a neologism with the same meaning as "one of the few". So we're probably stuck with it now, just like we're stuck with "begs the question" used to mean "raise the question" and "two times longer" used to mean "two times as long".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pushrax 6y ago
  "leverage" used as a verb bugs me the most. The "-age" suffix is clearly established as a way to form a noun, in this case with the base verb "lever". If we treat "leverage" as a verb, "leverageage" is valid.
  - gweinberg 6y ago
    "Lever" is already a noun."Lever" is the tool, "leverage" is what you get by using the tool.
    - pushrax 6y ago
      You can debate whether "leverage" comes from the noun or verb form of "lever" (which both exist, and the "-age" pattern is used for both nouns and verbs), but the main point is that "leverage" used as a verb breaks prior usage of "-age" in exactly the way I described. "leverage" has been used as a noun for centuries, but as a verb for only decades. It's a recent neologism.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        I.e. a neologism.