Thread: Just, a quick word.

I expect some of you know my dislike of the mongrel word just.

Now I am going to add to that literally. The other day someone said to me that their hands were literally blocks of ice, and argued about it when I contradicted them. It seems that a certain portion of the population now has a new definition of literally. It's not the word I dislike, it is the loss of a useful gradation of meaning in the general slush pit.

Got any you would like to share?

Nonplussed. People have this belief that it means 'unperturbed' or 'not worried'. It's actually the complete opposite. It means to 'surprise or confuse'.

Ironic. I don't know how many people think this means 'coincidence'. Just because somebody spent their life saying they hated guns and was then killed by one, that's not irony. What would make it irony is if that person bought a car with bulletproof windows and was shot at, the bullet hit the window, and then ricocheted off it and then killed them. That's ironic.

It's the way language develops... if enough people believe something is a certain way, then sure enough, that's the way it is.

It's just sad that it's idiocy that's guiding this development.

Do you mean it is barely sad, or only sad, or that sadness is what it deserves?

Just sad, mutter, mutter.

Sorry Chris, don't be nonplussed, I was, literally, just being ironical .

It's not just a manner of speaking, but of giving indication of just meaning and message without too much risk of just missing the mark. With just enough understanding of common dialects, a person shouldn't just arrive at the inferred understanding, but the true just message being portrayed.

Perhaps it's just/simply sad that it's idiocy that's guiding this development.

Don't worry Olly it's all fun and games.

Why would 'just' be considered a 'mongrel' word? Fowler* recognises it as a legitimate word in common use. Or is the fact that it is in 'common' use sufficient to justify its classification as 'mongrel'?

The usage examples given by Fowler and by the Oxford Concise** are typical of the uses I learned for the word growing up. It is not a word with a precise meaning, which may be another reason for considering it 'mongrel', but its very imprecision makes it useful.

In most instances 'just' can be eliminated with no loss of sense, which is enough to condemn most instances of its use. There are occasions, however, when, as k3ng says of the cow, nothing else will do. At such times dropping 'just' altogether or putting another, more precise, word in its place will either deviate from the author's style or force a meaning the author did not intend.

So I suppose I shall just go on using 'just' on those occasions when I believe it best expresses what I want to say in the way I want to say it.

*The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3rd edition, R.W. Burchfield ed., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996. pp. 430-431
** The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 9th edition, Della Thompson ed., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995, p. 737