"only ever"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes in the New Yorker for Nov. 29,

               Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82)

I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be

               All Schulz ever wanted to be was a cartoonist.

                                        or

              Schulz wanted only to be a cartoonist.

                                        or

              A cartoonist!  Yessirree, Bob, that's the only thing Schulz ever wanted to be!

Anymore, is the New Yorker losing its celebrated sensitivity to English?  Its old-time persnickety copy-editors used to would have forstalled something like this.

Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column?

JL


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