I read that you can tighten up prose by avoiding the word “just” and thought, sure, let’s try that. I found 43 offenders on my blog. (I only went back to 2020 or so—anything older is beyond redemption.) The worst instances are those where “just” is used as a synonym of “only,” but that modifier is already implied by the sentence structure: A student who wishes to apply to a top university needs more than just confidence in her academic talent. Another tic of mine is to use “just” just to mean “simply,” when it’s really up to the reader...