One can say only God knows in reference to some mystery only an omniscient being would know, or for those who prefer their oaths minced, heaven knows or goodness knows or lord knows.
The inverted form God only knows is also very common. But if read in usual English word order, it means something different, that God knows to the exclusion of anything else— God "only knows," and doesn't see, hear, act, etc.
Why and how then do we say God only knows? Is it a mangled quotation, a holdover from archaic English, or something else?
Answer
"God only knows" is an idiom. These two are equivalent.
As to why James can't just give me a straight answer, God only knows!
I really don't know why James can't just give me a straight answer!
Where the phrase comes from, and why it is inverted is probably a better discussion for ELU.
From the perspective of an English learner, you're just going to have to accept that it's an idiom, and hence you'll have to learn it by rote.
No comments:
Post a Comment