Its silly to translate titles in general, but luckily this site has stuck with the original names of most series, including this one. But there always seems to be some uninformed individuals who go and translate things. Other than a needed meaning to be conveyed, translation should be avoid at all costs, especially when it is not critical like a title.

On another note... in Shina Dark, the group that translated (SCX) it seem to take a liberty of calling Exoda as "Satan" which is complete garbage. He can be refered as maou or his name, but calling him "Satan" is just absolutely incorrect; his given name is not that and the idea of maou being translated into "Satan" is very obvious lack of understanding. Similarly the people who translate Bob-san into Mr. Bob also deviates the meaning meaning; there are no suffix honorifics in modern English.

A language is not just a means of communication, but also carries the culture of its country and the way of thinking of its people. Translation should be done on a minimal scale whenever possible.

They do mean the same thing. You've just made the incorrect association. It's God-only, God alone, only God. As in,
"Only Bob knew the truth. Bob only, knew the vastness of its depths."
"Only he knew the truth. He alone, knew the vastness of its depths."
(As a side-note, Bob is a terrible name, and parents should be punished for naming their children Bob.)

channel_49 is half right.
This is a different meaning: The Only World God Knows.
By my interpretation, in consideration of the overarching plot over a peculiarity of the main character, this is the incorrect meaning.

This is a less accepted (call it colloquial, or unorthodox) grammar: The World God Only Knows.
This is a more widely-accepted grammar: The World Only God Knows.
This is an alternative but widely-accepted grammar: The World That God Only Knows.
Even better: The World That Only God Knows.

They all mean the same thing, and they are all acceptable. Some people are just more comfortable with certain sentence structures than others. The original, I agree, is the least comfortable.

I support "The World God Only Knows" even though it is a less common grammar, because it is a title. It is uncommon, and so, as a title, unique.

Whether Wakaki Tamiki intended it to be thus is debatable, but in retrospect, it is acceptable.

Language is not set in stone, the English language, least of all; it's fluid. The same sentence can mean many different things, depending on the context, or the intonation. Many here seem to be of the opinion that the English language is so convenient as to have no ambiguities when it comes to the meanings of words and sentences. If only.

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If you were to go there and come back to me hurt, I will take your place.. and pull everything you hate.. into destruction...
I will erase anything that hurts you.. from the face of this world.

No comma is required. The sentence is now equivalent to "Only he knew the vastness of its depths."

Like the above example, using a comma for this sentence is incorrect. The second sentence is slightly ambiguous, but does not mean the same thing as
"Only Bob knew the vastness of its depths."

An interpretation might be:
"Bob only knew the vastness of its depths, he didn't know anything else."

Another interpretation:
"Bob only knew the vastness of its depths, he didn't know the vastness of its other aspects."

I could probably generate a few other interpretations in the same vein, but regardless of the above, the title does not contain a comma or other punctuation marks.

At its most basic level, 'only' is applied to the word or phrase it precedes. 'Alone' is applied to the word or phrase it follows. They are not usually interchangeable.



Which is why it's important to use proper grammar when you aren't conveying your words orally. The fact that there's a thread arguing over the meaning of five word title hints that it could have been phrased much more effectively.

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"It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

imo,
twgok IS grammatically correct.
the placement of 'only' stressed which word is 'the only thing' at that title. and its fine to place it somewhere else.

you should read shakespeare, they're more confusing, and make you think they're grammatically incorrect (even i sometimes think so and refuse you accept them as correct). but you can't refute that they're beautiful.

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grammar mistake is intentional, grammar nazis need their entertainment.

I agree with yuno

"The World God Only Knows" stresses the idea of the world that the protagonist Keima knows, as he knows it. Since we live in one world that can be viewed differently in many ways it pertains to the world as how Keima sees it.

"The World Keima Katsuragi Only Knows" is the world through galge....

Kinda geeky....

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The only light in eternal darkness is heroism... and manga

The title is fine and grammatically correct. All you're doing now is playing with syntax.

The World Only God Knows: Nobody except god knows that world.

The World God Only Knows: Can be considered awkward, but still viable.

Omitting "That" in this case is fine too.

This terrible topic is just a pedantic and incorrect display of personal semantics. Someone should close this shit.

Last edited by Unrequited at 7:31 pm, Nov 24 2010

What yuno19, moondoggiebuiscuit, Unrequited, is what I realized a day after posting what I said before... I change my opinion and say that the translation given is correct. Specially about how it underlines the importance of how Keima has his own "world" and through his new experiences opens to a new one full of possibilities...

Well, the problem is that "only" in the case of the second is then modifying the "knows" meaning that knowing is all that God is doing in terms of that world. Imagine the difference between:

"I only know how to swim"
and
"Only I know how to swim"

We notice that the first one is modifying my knowledge of swimming meaning that that's all that is pertains within the scope of my knowledge. In the latter one, we see that it's modifying me, as a subject, so that I'm now the singular object which has this knowledge (and excludes others from having this knowledge).

A few more examples:

Only I sleep.
I only sleep.

Only I eat.
I only eat.

Only I know.
I only know.

Notice the placement of the "only" modifies what the word itself is modifying. In the original Japanese, it works somewhat differently. 神のみぞ知るセ カイ has it so that the "only" actually modifies after the noun. However, that's just how it works in Japanese like the particle "だけ" and works differently than in the English. Perhaps the confusion, however, stems from the fact that "God only" somehow is an actual phrase used in English stemming from the "improper" usage of the modifying "only".

It's also important to note that "alone" and "only" are not interchangeable by swapping them in the same place since they modify phrases in different places. (Alone modifying something it comes after whereas only modifies something it comes before.)

Last edited by Yoo-jin at 12:15 am, Dec 24 2010

wow when I read the title "the world god only knows" I thought it meant something like, "the god of the world has only knowledge"

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