In the early days of this column, I wrote about trying to train myself to use “and” when I reached for “but”. I want to keep reading this book and it’s after midnight; I love her and I hate the way she keeps scratching her head. I thought the shift might help me, and anyone listening, to recognise ambivalence and the constant multiplicity of incompatible feelings and ideas.
I was right. I like the way replacing but with and invites me to think. It’s an invitation, not a command. Sometimes I really do mean but: I’m trying to bike home before the rain comes in but that light is red. I want to scream and run away but I’m an adult in a meeting. Even then, but jumps over the experience of ambivalence to the obligatory action. And would also be true, would allow me to tip my hat to the discomfort of a wet bike ride or a distressing interaction before doing the correct thing.
(Would it help some of the drivers who speed through red lights? I’m frustrated that I’ve waited three rounds already and it’s now someone else’s turn to go, how uncomfortable for me to sit here with and tolerating more waiting. We could try some new signs. There’s a use for an Arts degree.)
Last week I was talking with someone who started to say “I just meant ...” and then caught herself. I’m trying to train myself not to say just, she said, not to undermine and minimise what I think. I told her about and and but.
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I’ve noticed my own and other people’s use of just more since that conversation. Sometimes it’s used to minimise: I’ll just be another minute, I’ll take just one more spoonful. This means: I am doing what I appear to be doing, but barely, not quite, not as much as I could or want to. I do this but I don’t, as we might say now, own the action. Often if this kind of “just” is removed, the statement encodes less guilt and anxiety: I’ll be a little longer, I’ll take another spoonful. The speaker takes charge of her needs, the implicit apology is gone.
More generally, the effect of ‘just’ varies. Sometimes it’s an aggressive or critical intention, sometimes the speaker minimises her own opinion or suggestion, sometimes it’s a coded excuse or apology
Sometimes just is more manipulative in undermining the statement. I’m just suggesting, I just wonder: I say this but I don’t mean it, or I’m not sure of it, or I don’t take responsibility for the implications. Often this usage blurs into passive aggression: I’m just saying, meaning I’m saying only what everyone thinks, or might think; meaning I speak experimentally, as if there is some other form of speech or expression that I decline. I’m not stating or alleging or insisting, just saying, don’t blame me.
“Just” is an odd word in this context. To be just in time or just over the edge means almost-not, barely, without a margin; I think of a block of printed text “justified” to the right or left.
The etymology of “just” is to do with correctness, exactitude, the first recorded adverbial use in 1417 surprisingly not much later than the adjective “just” meaning fair, right, morally correct (1384 – all lexicographic geekery courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary). “A just decision” and “I’m just saying” don’t seem to have much in common, but in both cases the promise is that there is no exaggeration or grandiloquence, that nothing more than truth is spoken.
[ Sarah Moss: ‘I’m a classic first child. A driven overachiever. Slightly neurotic’Opens in new window ]
I tend to prick up my ears when someone announces any form of truth-telling. Like “to tell you the truth”, “just wondering” or “just to let you know” usually means something else is going on. I generally assume that people are telling what they believe to be true and expect the same assumption in return, so why does this particular comment or request need to be excused? Why not “I wonder” or “I write to let you know”? What is disowned or diminished by “just”? (In the case of “just following up”, it’s obvious: did you forget or are you ignoring this?)
More generally, the effect of “just” varies. Sometimes it’s an aggressive or critical intention, sometimes the speaker minimises her own opinion or suggestion, sometimes it’s a coded excuse or apology. And while I don’t suggest any form of exhausting self-policing, I’m finding that often catching my own “just” and avoiding it shows me exactly what shady purpose it serves this time.
