Using a Google Ngram

Let's assume you want to know the most common and natural placement of the adjunct only in a sentence about what you eat for dinner on a Friday. Your three basic alternatives for adjunct positions are start, middle and end (initial, medial, terminal).

You open the Google Ngram page and type your three possible word strings (Only I eat fish Note that Only I eat fish is possible if you mean, for example, that you alone, in your family or friends, eat fish. But this string is not found in Ngram search database. , I only eat fish, I eat fish only) in the search box at the top left of the Ngram page - as indicated by the red arrow in the following screenshot:

When you press Enter you will be told that Ngram cannot find the string of words only I eat fish or I eat fish only in its search of Google books. (See the green arrow above.)

The rest of the Ngram page is shown below. It is a clear indication that the best positional choice of only is the medial position.

In the case of only it is clear that only one of the alternatives is in common use. Often, however, both or even all alternatives are found by the Ngram search. The following is an example of the Ngram graph when this is the case.

The Ngram screenshot shows a simplified comparison of Sometimes I... and I sometimes.... As you see they are both equally common starts to a sentence about what you sometimes do.

Here is the original 'sometimes' Ngram page.

Note, finally, that Ngram does not work well or at all for long comparisons. And it will not find unusual strings of words. So don't expect it to give you good results in all cases.

Nevertheless, if you use the Ngram Viewer intelligently, it can help you make good decisions on the best of the two or more alternatives you are considering using.