Is there a difference between the following?
- It’s only me.
- It’s just me.
I don’t think there is, but what do you say @Alan, @Anglophile, @NearlyNapping, @Arinker.
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They mean the same thing.
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Just and Only are adverbs, and they are more or less the same in meaning.
Please note not to use it with negative or semi negative adverbs. For instance, you may say, ‘The bottle contains only a little water.’ but not ‘only little water’. (This applies to just as well).
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‘Only me’ indicates that there is no need for alarm. ‘Just me’ suggests that I am alone and not with anybody else.
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Thank you all for your wonderful answers, however I must say Alan’s reply is just what I wanted to hear. Why? Because I’ve heard both a lot of times and as usual Alan has hit the right nail on the head. Thank you very much Alan for taking an interest in my post. It makes me very happy. You know, a lot of people think and say that the English language is a very ‘easy’ language. I’ve come to realise that this is not true.
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You probably mean “Alan has hit the nail right on the head”.
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On the contrary. The expression is ‘to hit the nail on the head’ and sometimes people say: ‘to hit the right nail on the head.’
You know Dutch, I’ll translate it: De nagel op de kop slaan/ De juiste nagel op de kop slaan.
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Are you sure the expresion ‘to hit the right nail on the head’ really exists?
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I’ve never heard “hit the right nail on the head”, as opposed to “hit the nail on the head”, but it is an interesting idea. I guess you first have to find the right nail, then you can hit it exactly.
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Stop agonizing me. First of all I have a lot health problems and secondly I have heard it used. I feel like I’m being treated like a someone who has no knowledge at all, like a fool. Stop it and I won’t send you any posts any more. Deal?
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I’ve heard it and here it is.
You will hear it at 13:57 So if you’re democratic, you’ll listen to it.
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I think that in this particular case, Thacher is intentionally using the idiom in a modified form to make a specific point. It is not the way the phrase is normally used.
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I don’t care if she’s intentionally using this idiom in a modified form to make a specific point. By the way, if she’s doing it, anyone could do it, right? Now, I’m kindly asking you to delete my account. I want nothing more to with you. Is that clear? I mean it. And don’t say you can’t do it.
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She seems to have said it for emphasis!
In that case, it is possible for a speaker to also say: Hit the nail right on the head or Hit the nail on the right head depending upon the context, mood and emotion.
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Marc, nobody is attacking you. The entire purpose of this forum is to sort out all the nuances in language. Language is not that exact. Disagreeing on usage is common, even normal, around here. Someone saying they’ve never heard something before is not an attack. It’s a simple statement.
Modifying an idiom is fine. Thatcher was a politician. Creative use of language is what politicians do. In the context, I think it’s actually pretty clever because the emphasis was on the RIGHT nail. She was saying that she properly identified the issue.
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Creative use of the language is something that I have concerns about disappearing if we start to rely on things like ChatGPT. Would the AI have been able to come up with the perfectly apt “Hit the RIGHT nail on the head“ as you and Mrs. Thatcher did?
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Perhaps Thatcher is alluding to the phrase “pushing the right button” in this particular situation.
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I asked the AI to combine the phrases “hitting the nail on the head” and “pushing the right button” in a creative and humorous way and this is one of the many answers it has produced:
How about: “You really hit the button on the head there!” It’s a playful mashup of the two phrases that plays with the idea of hitting something precisely and also pushing a button for a desired result. It’s a fun and lighthearted way to acknowledge someone who has done or said something that is spot-on or effective.
That answer reminds me of this site:
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I don’t think Marc will take it to heart any longer or as much as he had done it on the spur of the moment when he seemed to have taken Torsten’s clarification amiss.
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