Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, October 18, 2019, 4:46 PM
Town Square
A scientific star, SOFIA research jet visits NASA Ames
Original post made on Oct 19, 2019
Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, October 18, 2019, 4:46 PM
Comments (4)
Posted by Hmm...
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Oct 19, 2019 at 3:33 pm
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Oct 19, 2019 at 3:33 pm
"SOFIA is one of the only infrared telescopes available to astronomers..."
What does "one of the only" mean?
The only one? One of the few? (In most writing, "only" and "one of" are mutually exclusive.)
Could you rephrase it more clearly?
Posted by Alex M
a resident of Willowgate
on Oct 21, 2019 at 3:12 pm
a resident of Willowgate
on Oct 21, 2019 at 3:12 pm
@Hmm... "One of the only infrared telescopes" means just that. There are exactly SIX large infrared telescopes worldwide, and one of them is SOFIA.
Web Link
Posted by Hmm...
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Oct 21, 2019 at 4:06 pm
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Oct 21, 2019 at 4:06 pm
Alex M, your "means just that" missed my point completely.
Literally, "the only" means there's exactly one. But "one of" implies out of more than one. Which do you want?
I'm an experienced editor. "One of the only" is a fairly recent usage habit, by people with a fuzzier understanding of "only." The situation you described always appears in carefully-edited publications as "one of the few infrared telescopes." (The same publications that print "better of the two" and "best of the three" but not "best of the two." "One of the only" is less subtle than that, and is taken by many professional wordsmiths as a simple error.)
Posted by Hermit
a resident of Martens-Carmelita
on Oct 22, 2019 at 2:04 am
a resident of Martens-Carmelita
on Oct 22, 2019 at 2:04 am
I wish I had seen an announcement before it was here. I would liked to have seen one of the few.
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