With everything that's going on, this might seem to be an odd day to do this, but I have to make a writing confession.
Almost every blog post, I need to go back and edit out at least one or two "just"s. Not the adjective ("let's work toward a more just society") but the filler adverb meaning, essentially, "simply," but which in modern American English has "just" taken over our speaking and writing. It is everywhere. I say it far too frequently. (I "just" want to do this, or such-and-such "just" has to be true.) "Just" tends to weaken one's prose so much, to nullify or exponentially diminish what is being said. One "just" and a whole paragraph becomes soft and squishy, like a marshmallow. As a woman, I struggle as it is to be taken seriously, so anything that impedes the process has got to go.
I once read an article that said that "just" has become an almost sentence-by-sentence staple of evangelical prayer ("I just want to thank you, Jesus" kind of thing). For a Tudor-era Book of Common Prayer girl, it is hard to imagine wanting to repeat the word frequently. If nothing else, it is not very attractive to the ear. When I see it in print, wherever I see it, I ask myself, does the use of the word "just" improve the sentence? When I find it in my prose, I consider whether using "simply" or "only" would be better, or I remove it altogether. Usually, the sentence is much more powerful without what is essentially a draining qualifier.
As we speak, I have had to edit out several other squishy expressions, "I think," "I guess," among others. Lordy, all of this may be my version of what my mom used to do, apologize before saying anything important. Part of what has kept me burrowing around underground all these years has been the desire not to be noticed, to make everything sound backhanded and uncertain. It worked, all too well. Even the opening paragraph of this very essay has that quality, although I will leave it in for illustration purposes. Yes, the time has come "just" to say what I mean and mean what I say, with as little filler as possible!
Have a good weekend, folks. Hang in there.
