You only live twice or eight times

Posted: June 18, 2011 in Info

Professor Ernest Brennecke of Columbia is credited with inventing a sentence that can be made to have eight different meanings by placing ONE WORD in all possible positions in the sentence:

“I hit him in the eye yesterday.”
Question: What is this word?
Answer: The word is “ONLY”.
The Message:

1.ONLY I hit him in the eye yesterday. (No one else did.)

2.I ONLY hit him in the eye yesterday. (Did not slap him.)

3.I hit ONLY him in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit others.)

4.I hit him ONLY in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit outside the eye.)

5.I hit him in ONLY the eye yesterday. (Not other organs.)

6.I hit him in the ONLY eye yesterday. (He doesn’t have another eye.)

7.I hit him in the eye ONLY yesterday. (Not today.)

8.I hit him in the eye yesterday ONLY. (Did not wait for today.)

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Comments
    • boddhayan says:

      Moon the same thing can be applied to Bengali, or for that matter other languages also :P

      Sample:
      1) Khanti goru’r dhoodh (states about the COW)
      2) Goru’r dhoodh khanti (a general statement on COW and MILK)
      3) Goru’r khanti dhoodh (states about the MILK)

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