How One Word Can Change Everything: Exploring a Sentence Puzzle with Endless Meanings

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One Word Changes The Meaning

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."

The word is "ONLY."

Hmm, sounds interesting? Let's take a look at it...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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