Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
"just" and "only" - two words I try to delete from my writing whenever I see them unless they truly cannot be done without. In cahoots with "merely," and so on. (Not at kb, but at readership: if you care about writing, go at these words like they are evil.) They are words that take the power out of statements. Here they take power away from the subject, I think. They are dismissive and minimizing words, often used to minimize the impact of potentially offensive or upsetting comments, or to downplay the actual message a speaker is trying to convey. I think about "just" and "only" a lot. I delete them at least as frequently. LA LA LA I AM WRITING THINGS TODAY CLEARLY