When we were younger...

Marius Hancu wrote:

In terms of popularity, there is no contest: At Yahoo: 382 for "When only a child" 1,520 for "already as a child" 298,000 for "even as a child"

To all who use statistics:

When you use and display statistics please use it correctly. Data you have provided say nothing about popularity they say

• 382 for "When only a child" WRONG
• 1,520 for "already as a child" WRONG but found in a context when it is possible
• 298,000 for "even as a child" CORRECT

BUT, "When only a child", "already as a child", "even as a child" are not compatible!

In terms of language's expressions or constructions, one can decide about different usages of something only under specific conditions. For example two equivalent expressions are comparable only if they have small ratio usage - less than 10. If the ratio is 100+ then the one with smaller part is almost certainly an error.

Statistics is very useful and dangerous tool. In this case it looks as if it says something only because two expressions searched are nonsensical.

Hi Calif Jim,

You asked:

Which do you find ungrammatical?  (Or what does your book say, if that's the source of your question.)

Number 2 is ungrammatical according to grammar books. Number 1 and number 3 are both all right, and represent good, idiomatic English. So, why did I ask this question? Well, because number 2 doesn't ring my 'correction bells', if you will. That's why I wanted to see what other people would think about sentence number 2, that is, if they'd deem it ungrammatical or not.

Englishuser wrote:

Hi Calif Jim, You asked: Which do you find ungrammatical?  (Or what does your book say, if that's the source of your question.) Number 2 is ungrammatical according to grammar books. Number 1 and number 3 are both all right, and represent good, idiomatic English. So, why did I ask this question? Well, because number 2 doesn't ring my 'correction bells', if you will. That's why I wanted to see what other people would think about sentence number 2, that is, if they'd deem it ungrammatical or not.

There is nothing grammatical and ungrammatical about idiomatic expressions so you got me to the wrong end and that is not a fair play.

Even as a child/boy/... is the only one widely used and accepted.

When only a child/boy is a short version of When I/he/.../it was/were only a child/boy

but strictly, grammatically it is wrong.

He was so smart when he was only a child. = When only a child, he was so smart

Already as a child/boy is a version of Even as a child/boy taken from foreign languages and carelessly translated into English (German is common source).

Both When only a child/boy and Already as a child/boy are used extremely rare.

BUT, Already as a child has a meaning on its own: he was able to do it even when he was so young that his/her ability was very surprising for his/her age. In this case, it is not a separate expression, you get it very simply

My daughter could already as a child play perfectly a piano = Already as a child, my daughter could play perfectly a piano.

So, apart from a bad translation in certain cases, the main source of

• When only a child/boy
• Already as a child/boy

when they mimic an expression (for example they start a sentence with a following comma), is, permissible or not, an inversion of certain part of the sentence.

There is no magic in that. Most of the inversions of both, I have found are grammatically incorrect, but colloquially, as anything else similar, permissible. Why anyone decided to put any of them as idiomatic I do not know - I wouldn't say they deserved it.

CalifJim wrote:

Just a couple of points. Lastly, whether an expression in English happens to be a literal translation from another language is irrelevant.

Sure, but in this case Already as a boy is found almost without an exception in letters of German students who wrote about their experience in England.

Already as a child is found as said above.

Regarding Google, Yahoo and other sources of English, it is not in a simple search for the phrase but in a difficult statistical analysis where you can find the answer in some cases. Not all. It is useful for those who know what they are doing.

This would be a very unusual situation that all billions of pages use exclusively Even as a boy/child and in few hundreds When only a boy for example. If so few people use the expression When only a boy I expect that that many times that expression won't be understood by another billion. But, still it does not mean that the expression is not an idiom.

That is all.

By idiomaticity I mean "fitting-in-ness"!

I mean speaking and writing like everyone around you, not standing out as having unusual ways of communicating, which only distract the listener or reader from the message you are trying to communicate.
It means that if everybody around you consistently says "It's me", you will not fit in if you say "It's I", no matter how many grammar books insist that the only correct form is "It's I".
It means that if everybody around you consistently says "Do you trust me to fix rice for dinner?", you will not fit in if you say "Have you confidence in my preparing rice for the evening repast?", no matter how many grammar books insist that this is the more elegant phrasing and style.
It means that if everybody around you consistently says "I always do it that way", you will not fit in if you say "Always I am thus doing it".

Sometimes the language community you find yourself in uses expressions which are not unanimously sanctioned by the grammar mavens, but you need to learn to use them in order to fit in.  On the other hand, if you find yourself in a language community which consistently speaks a variety of English not usually heard among most fairly educated people, for example saying "He don't care none about it" for "He doesn't care much about it", you may choose to speak that way within that community, but also learn the standard ways of speaking used by people you will encounter more often in the world at large.

More frequently, there are several ways of saying the same thing, all of them grammatical, but only one or two of them are idiomatic, i.e., the way everybody around you expresses that particular thought.

I hope this has given you some idea that what is meant by idiomaticity is something beyond grammatical correctness.

CJ