I suggest also linking back to part one from each part.

:-)

Good suggestion, I was also thinking of that.

On to Part 4: http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/482523

Back to Part 2: http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/480021

I suggest dropping the 'but' from 'but only to'.

I think it's fine. It enforces the contrast.

(I admit that I take a lot of liberties with English in my prose, but in this case I think it's still a very common structure. Googling "but only to find" yields quite a lot...)

> Googling "but only to find" yields quite a lot...

435 'actual' results, although that doesn't mean much nowadays. Google is having a lot of problems with reliability on estimates and on pages returned.

In any case, I'd rather leave it. Unless you really really think that this is grammatically unacceptable (which I don't think it is).

Actually, here's a stronger Google argument. "but only to * that". Definitely more than 500 :-)

I'll resort to my final line of defence here - "Maybe it's American English." :-P It sounds very odd to me, anyway.

I demand that you call a professional expert to settle this :-)...

Well, if CK likes it that increases the likelihood that it is American English.

And if Jim Breen hates it that increases the likelihood that it isn't British/Commonwealth English.

The "but" sounds weird to me, as an American English speaker.

I will say what I said before. It reinforces the contrast.

He gets out of the dumpster, thinks "oh, nice, I'm out of the dumpster, finally... and the weather's so nice!", and then realizes that... "crap, I smell like... crap".