Salutations!
Me again—after a bit of an absence. (See why below, under Where I've Been.) A fun, playful one today.
Tell me you're a writer without telling me you're a writer. I'll go first.
I'm standing in the thin light of the fridge this morning, reading the copy on the side of an Oatly milk container. I am interrogating the word order.
The copy reads:
"We only know oats."
Oatly copy is wild and
wildly entertaining; I've written about it before in Milking Brand Voice. I also really, really like Oatly's oat milk. But that morning by the fridge light I look at the Oatly carton and I think: "This phrase feels off."
Then I realize why:
Instead of: "We only know oats,"
It should read: "We know only oats."
Why exactly though? And why does such a tiny thing as word order matter—especially now, in the age of AI? (We'll get to that in a bit.)
The Nerdy
Why
In English, the word only modifies whatever immediately follows it.
Move it, and you change the meaning of the sentence entirely:
- "I only called her" = I called; I didn't email or text.
- "I called
only her" = She's the only person I called.
- "Only I called her" = I was the only one who called.
Only is wandering around inside that sentence like the last person standing in musical chairs—desperately searching for meaning.
See?
Same words. Completely different meanings.
Back to Oatly
Here's what the phrase on the Oatly carton actually says:
- "We only know oats" = The only thing we do with oats is know them.
We don't
grow them, process them, master them, or turn them into a delicious dairy alternative with a snarky tone of voice. We just... know about them.
That suggests limitation—as if Oatly is apologizing for its lack of expertise.
It has a sheepish, deficient quality when you think about it. (And, yes, we are thinking about it. Because honestly I'm in this deep so let's keep going.)
Now swap the order:
- "We know only oats" = Oats are the exclusive focus.
Oatly knows oats inside and out. Oatly loves them. Celebrates them.
Oatly knows diddly about wheat, quinoa, or flax.
We know only oats is a declaration of specialization. It's confident and intentional. It says: "We at Oatly have chosen to master oats exclusively! We are OAT PEOPLE."
There's brain science behind this, too. Our brains give extra weight to the end of a sentence—linguists call it, well, end-weight. The last words—"only oats"—stick with us and shape our overall impression.
It's subtle. Most people would never consciously register it. (Fewer still would write a few hundred words about it lol.)
But still their subconscious has already formed an opinion about Oatly's expertise before they've even finished reading.
So What, Eh?
Why does this matter? Let's experiment and apply this rule more broadly:
I
only write with pencils = limitation; you don't do anything else with pencils (like rewind cassette tapes 😉)
I write only with pencils = passionate devotion to the pencil cause!
We only buy from startups = we don't sell to them, for example
We buy only from startups = you confidently state your preference
Word order isn't just cosmetic. This isn't just me being obsessive about tiny details on a sub-zero morning in Boston and having a little fun (although those things are true). The bigger truth that goes beyond milk cartons:
Word order can fundamentally change meaning.
One word-order change transforms a sentence.
One word change declares identity.
If you're trying to position your brand as expert specialists rather than accidental amateurs... well: maybe you know only oats.
Which Brings Us Back to AI
Generative AI is very good at generating language that sounds right and seems right.
What it's not great at is judgment: choosing one word order over another because of what you want to signal.
I have no idea who wrote Oatly's carton copy. This isn't about them. But it is about a tool that will confidently plop out onto its conveyor belt, "We only write with
pencils."
It won't pause to consider whether you mean limitation... or devotion.
It won't stand in front of your fridge in the weak light and feel a low-grade existential itch about word order.
That itch is judgment. It's taste.
AI knows alllll the words.
Only you and I decide what they mean.
