Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Heard today, in the wild, the expression ‘the just of it’ rather than ‘the gist of it’. There may be an assumption on the part of the user that ‘the just of it’ is a contraction of, say, ‘just the important bits of it’.
And again (this never fails to amaze me) ample confirmation of its wider usage is available from Google (14,500) .....
To give you the just of it, girls are better than boys and that’s that. Live with it. And the a short design meeting, who’s initial ideas are the best? ...
foolfillment.co.uk/2005/11/ – 75k –
If you want, you can check mine out by clicking the link. the default isn’t as customized as my LE mega test style, but you can get the just of it. ...
forum.myfreeforum.org/ftopic1187.php&highlight= – 83k – ... just put it out of view, you could put the poems and the reviews in a special “hidden” folder. Is that basically the just of it stella? ...
www.purelydreaming.com/?do=forums&post=15355 – 22k -
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I don’t think I’ve heard “the just of it”, personally, but I’ve heard “the jest of it” (11.5K solid ghits), which is grammatically correct and might be a candidate eggcorn.
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IF you were from the Midwest, Peter, rather than the UK, I would guess that the “just of it” is a bit of hypercorrection. In much of the US, “just” is pronounced “gist.” Someone aware of this fact, trying to speak and/or write more “correctly,” and not realizing that the word “gist” really exists, might correct it to “just.”
I don’t imagine this explanation works for any part of the UK, but you never know.
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Since few people know what the word “gist” means (a legal term, from latin for “where the point lies”), they put the best one they can come up with. I’ve never heard “just”, but I frequently hear “jest”, perhaps from some connection to “surely you jest”. “Jest” also sounds a lot closer to “gist” than “just” does. I haven’t tried to find an example in the wild yet, but I will if it helps qualify it as an eggcorn, which I think it clearly is. I hear it several times a year, but I’m from Texas and that might be its own explanation.
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Today I heard someone say “that’s the just of it,” and it almost came across sounding like “that’s the justice of it,” but to a certain degree “the just” took on a meaning close to “that which is just.” So to all of Peter’s naysayers, I’d have to say I’m convinced.
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I’ve see some “just ofs” on the net that look clearly eggcornish. I think the idea is that “just of” means the essentials. Just the facts, Ma’am, etc. You got the just of it, all you need to understand it, no more. The core bits.
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I had the “short for ‘justice’” thought that jorkel brought up.
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To me also it came across as the “right(s) of it”, “just” in the sense of “truth-telling” or something of that sort. I documented these two over 10 years ago, and am sure I’d heard them before that.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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