The solitary introvert: only alone, not lonely

These words give a lot of trouble to English learners, not only alone, but also in combination. This confusion reflects not only the lack of a one-to-one correspondence between concepts in L1 and L2 (English), but also the specifics of English usage.

One source of confusion is the common misconception that lone, alone and lonely are synonymous. These three words are used differently and have quite different connotations.

Lone (adj) simply means single, unaccompanied, or solitary (adj). It can refer to people, abstract nouns or objects, as seen below.

The windy beach was empty except for a lone jogger. (one, the only one seen) Or, to quote Stephen Leacock, "A solitary horseman appeared on the horizon..."

The Jack Pine is Tom Thomson's most famous painting, shown and described in this video clip at the Virtual Museum of Canada. Observe the usage of the words lone and solitary in the commentary. Until I looked it up just now, I'd remembered this painting as the lone pine. (the only one on the horizon).

Only (adj) also means there are no others, but it is used in a slightly different way. By saying that I was the only one in the room, I simply indicate that nobody else was there.

On the other hand, if I say I was the only left-handed person in the room, the listener (or reader) understands that there were others, but they were not left-handed. This use of only distinguishes one person or thing from the rest of a group.

Another use of only is to emphasize the smallness of a group or number. To illustrate, saying that I was only a few minutes late de-emphasizes the idea of the lateness and puts stress on how minimal the tardiness was.

This is not to be confused with a similar use of alone which has completely different implications. For instance, I might say the museum was very crowded; there were a few hundred people in the lobby alone. This means that including the numbers of people in the other rooms would make the total much larger.

Alone is an adverb as well as an adjective. I can say that I often walk on the beach alone, or that I enjoy spending time alone. In these statements, the word has a neutral connotation; it simply expresses the idea that I am an introvert.

On the other hand, lonely has a sad connotation, as expressed in the lyrics of Roy Orbison's bluesy song Only the Lonely. Replace with the less common synonym lonesome, and you're into the very sad country songs. Then there's Billy Joel's song: Only the good die young. (This title implies that the bad live longer.)

Although these are not the only (sole) uses of the words in question, they the most common ones.