Hi OG, how are you?  
There's something I'm not sure about, this is inversion, you know that when a phrase begins with "only" (in some cases) we need inversion.  
What about this paragraph?

With that stinky neighbour of yours

we had plenty of laughs

which we would refer to as SS

and only we knew why


Should I say "and only did we know why"???

I really cannot think about it, would you help me??  

Saskia escribió:

Hi OG, how are you?  
There's something I'm not sure about, this is inversion, you know that when a phrase begins with "only" (in some cases) we need inversion.  
What about this paragraph?

With that stinky neighbour of yours

we had plenty of laughs

which we would refer to as SS

and only we knew why

Should I say "and only did we know why"???

I really cannot think about it, would you help me??  

Hi Saskia, welcome back after your holidays.    

I assume you want to emphasize the fact that you (the speaker), and the second person (the listener) are the only people who knew what SS meant.  

Two options without changing your original sentence too much...

"...and we only knew why" or "...and we only knew what SS meant"

The first one is probably what you are looking for and second makes your sentence less ambiguous at the expence of repeating the "SS".

Does that help?

It helps, of course, OG, but what if I want to use the word "only" at the beginning of the sentence?  

OGrady escribió:

Saskia escribió:

Hi OG, how are you?  
There's something I'm not sure about, this is inversion, you know that when a phrase begins with "only" (in some cases) we need inversion.  
What about this paragraph?

With that stinky neighbour of yours

we had plenty of laughs

which we would refer to as SS

and only we knew why

Should I say "and only did we know why"???

I really cannot think about it, would you help me??  

Hi Saskia, welcome back after your holidays.    

I assume you want to emphasize the fact that you (the speaker), and the second person (the listener) are the only people who knew what SS meant.  

Two options without changing your original sentence too much...

"...and we only knew why" or "...and we only knew what SS meant"

The first one is probably what you are looking for and second makes your sentence less ambiguous at the expence of repeating the "SS".

Does that help?

Yo no se mucho pero no le falta algo...xk no suena bien  

No seria asin....
...and Ifwe only knew why....
o
....and If we only knew what SS meant...


O esk no me enterao bien lo k preguntaba saskia

Saskia escribió:

It helps, of course, OG, but what if I want to use the word "only" at the beginning of the sentence?  

I don't really understand your original question unless you want to change the "order" of the words in the phrase "only we knew why". That's what inversion implies to me.

"Only" is already at the beginning of the phrase. Do you want to rewrite the whole sentence?

ercoco escribió:

Yo no se mucho pero no le falta algo...xk no suena bien  

No seria asin....
...and Ifwe only knew why....
o
....and If we only knew what SS meant...


O esk no me enterao bien lo k preguntaba saskia

Bueno hay una confusión aquí ERcoco, lo que yo preguntaba era acerca de la "inversión" y lo que vos decís, si bien es correcto, no es lo que yo preguntaba.

Te explico un poquito:

Si yo quiero enfatizar que solo mi amiga y yo conocíamos el significado de "SS", puedo decirlo de varias formas en inglés.  Una forma bastante literaria (y dado que yo lo quiero usar para un poema) es la inversión.
Cuando se comienza una frase con las palabras ONLY, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, etc se necesita invertir el orden del verbo y el sujeto, como si estuvieras haciendo una pregunta.

Pero a mí se me hizo una laguna cuando escribí mi poema, y por eso es que le preguntaba a OG, ya que su idioma natal es el inglés.

Te pongo un link para que veas de qué hablo

Cita:

In formal English, it is quite common to use inversion after negative adverbial expressions and restrictive words such as only, never, hardly and little.

At no time did he get permission for what he was doing.
Not until the next morning did she realise how serious it was.
Only later did they learn his terrible secret.
Never before have I seen such awful behaviour.
Hardly had we walked in the door when the phone started ringing.
Little do you know how much trouble you are in.

En rojo te he puesto el caso con la palabra "only".  Acá podés ver el resto del artículo >> http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/inversion01.html

Muchas gracias por tu aporte, siempre es bueno tener varias opiniones para aclarar alguna duda!!