| d21lewis said: It suggest that it's a small amount. However, what constitutes a small amount is open for interpretation. For example: Officer: "You're under arrest." Guy: "Under arrest? I only puched him. It's not like I shot him!" or Me: "That's a nice hat!" You: "Yeah, for only $40, you can have one, too!" Me: "Only $40!? I expected it to cost much more." You'll probably interpret these as me saying that "Only punched him" or "Only cost $40" as meaning "It was this and this alone. Absolutely nothing more". That's not the meaning I was going for. I mean that, in comparison to something else, the actual is less than the expected. You expect to walk into the store with $150 and not be able to leave with an Xbox 360. In reality, for merely/only/just $99, you can walk into a store and walk out with an Xbox 360*
*but you're going to have to agree to subscribe to Xbox Live for two years at $15 a month to do this. |
But you see, the meanings don't segregate out. Both interpretations must apply simultaneously. If the Guy said "I only punched him", and in fact, he'd punched him and knifed him, he would have quite clearly lied. And if it cost you $50 to get a copy of my hat, then "for only $40" is false, whether you meant it to indicate cheapness or total amount.
And while the statement you made of "...walking into a store and..." is reasonable, it is not stated in the same manner. The ad doesn't say that you can walk out of the store with a 360 having paid only $99, it says that you can buy an Xbox 360 for only $99. What you have done is introduced an alternative way of saying "up front" or "deposit", something that is very much absent in the ad.
