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Given this sentence:

Nina wouldn’t give her phone number to just anyone.

I’ve checked several dictionaries (Oxford, Longman, Cambridge, Macmillan) for the word just from the example above. It looks like it is an adjective modifying the pronoun anyone.

However, the meanings provided do not fit the above situation.

Finally, I found that just anyone is listed as an idiom in Merriam-Webster dictionary. As Merriam-Webster is an American dictionary, is just anyone an idiom in American English only? I can’t find the entry in the four dictionaries I mentioned.

tchrist
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Lone
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    Just anyone is a perfectly normal expression to me as a British English speaker. – Kate Bunting Jul 08 '22 at 07:21
  • The idiom "just anyone" is found in Merriam-Webster and Macmillan. Google is helpful for this kind of thing. – Stuart F Jul 08 '22 at 09:46
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    I find it odd that it's classified as an idiom. To me, it's at best a set phrase, since the meaning can be directly deduced from common definitions of the words themselves - just (simply) anyone (any person). – Nuclear Hoagie Jul 08 '22 at 17:45
  • Can you add inks and quotes of the definitions that you mention here? Otherwise this is missing a lot of context, especially since the dictionary entries are what you are asking about. – Mitch Jul 08 '22 at 19:26

2 Answers2

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This is not an idiom per se, nor is it confined to American English alone. It is a perfectly normal construction used by native speakers worldwide, one that follows naturally once you realize that just anybody is a kind of negative.

Attributive adjectives can only ever follow indefinite pronouns, never precede them as with nouns.

The OP is mistaking the part of speech of the modifier just here in their sentence:

  1. Nina wouldn’t give her phone number to just anyone.

Modifiers that precede indefinite pronouns are always adverbs, never adjectives. For example:

  1. Absolutely nobody is allowed behind the curtain.

That’s because pronouns are not quite like nouns when it comes to adjectives: attributive adjectives that modify an indefinite pronoun can only ever be placed after the pronoun they modify, never before it.

These are grammatical:

  1. We need somebody brave to save us.
  2. Somebody brave just volunteered.

But these are not grammatical:

  1. We need ❌brave somebody to save us.
  2. ❌Brave somebody just volunteered.

This unusual requirement that the attributive adjective must follow the indefinite pronoun is because these are the remnants of copular clauses that have been whittled down via the process known as whiz-deletion:

  1. We need somebody [who is] brave to save us.
  2. Somebody [who is] brave just volunteered.

The adjective just refers to the quality of justice:

  1. Any just person would free the falsely condemned prisoner.
  2. Any person who was just would free the prisoner.
  3. Anybody who was just would free the prisoner.
  4. Anybody just would free the prisoner.

But that is not at all what is going on here. It does not mean anybody just; it means anybody whatsoever or anybody at all, which like most modern uses of any is a kind of negative. Those are therefore adverbial uses.

So this is not an instance of a misplaced adjective just but rather the focusing adverb just in one possible location in the sentence. The poster’s sentence is exactly equivalent to one with the focusing adverb just moved elsewhere in the sentence:

  1. Nina wouldn’t just give her phone number to anyone.

With the implication that she wouldn’t just hand out her personal, private phone number to absolutely any random stranger who asked her for it.

Compare that with the same type of movement you see happening with the focusing adverb only in such sentences as:

  1. She didn’t only give it to John.
  2. She didn’t give it only to John.
  3. She didn’t give it to only John.
  4. She didn’t give it to John only.

Negative polarity items

You might notice, by the way, that absolutely is only used like this in negatives. This is also the case with just. The negation of the main verb in wouldn’t give is what licenses and indeed requires that it be just anyone not just someone.

  1. Absolutely anybody at all will do.
  2. Just anybody at all will do.
  3. Absolutely ❌somebody at all will do.
  4. Just ❌somebody at all will do.
tchrist
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  • I could see someone saying "We need *a* brave somebody to save us now." – Robusto Jul 08 '22 at 20:37
  • Illuminating! Tiny quibble, I don't think it's always negative. Do you mean for this experiment you don't want us to target a certain demographic? We'll choose just anyone to approach with the questionnaire? I think one meaning would involve a random selection, or seemingly random. – aparente001 Jul 08 '22 at 23:02
  • @aparente001 Interrogatives are negative contexts: Have you ever seen anybody like that? is fine, but I have ❌ever seen ❌anybody like that is ungrammatical. Similarly, Will you give this to just anyone? is a negative context. – tchrist Jul 08 '22 at 23:15
  • Let's agree to disagree on that. It doesn't seem negative to me. I see it as meaning "selected at random." – aparente001 Jul 08 '22 at 23:16
  • @Robusto Sure, but as soon as you used an article, you just made that a noun not an indefinite pronoun, the same way you do when you say An earlier me would have known better. – tchrist Jul 08 '22 at 23:16
  • @aparente001 You need to study negative polarity items and negative contexts. Just because something is a negative context does not mean that there's an overt negative. Like interrogatives, superlatives are also negative contexts for the purposes of triggering NPIs: That's the biggest joke I've ever seen is grammatical but That's a joke I've ❌ever seen is ungrammatical. The superlative is what licenses the NPI; without it, it's wrong. Hit up John Lawler on this: he's a citable authority on NPIs. – tchrist Jul 08 '22 at 23:18
  • You're right, I didn't know what was meant by negative contexts. Thank you. / You opened with "is a kind of negative" -- I think you could strengthen the post by editing this to make it more precise, – aparente001 Jul 08 '22 at 23:19
  • It’s relevant that “Nina wouldn’t give her phone number to anyone” has quite a different meaning from “Nina wouldn’t give her phone number to just anyone.” Nina discriminates. – Xanne Jul 09 '22 at 00:46
  • Hmm. “Absolutely everyone knows that!” / “We sent copies to absolutely everybody”. Absolutely only deals with the extremities, i.e. everything or nothing, but the everything group is positive. – Araucaria - Him Jul 09 '22 at 19:36
  • PS the interesting data here seem to show that the any/some/no etc series of words are compound determinatives, not pronouns (if you believe that there’s any such distinction to be made). In any case, the “absolutely” is best analysed as modifying a whole NP (because adverbs can modify NPs, but not nouns. For example “Almost a dollar” versus “ An almost dollar”) – Araucaria - Him Jul 09 '22 at 19:45
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At Lexico under ADVERB...definition 4.1:

Really; absolutely (used for emphasis)

At Cambridge:

Just is a common adverb in English, especially in speaking. It has different meanings.

Just meaning ‘simply’ or ‘absolutely’

We can use just meaning ‘simply’ or ‘absolutely’ to add emphasis to a statement:

It’s just not right.

Our holiday was just perfect.

So 'just anyone' means 'simply anyone' or 'absolutely anyone'.

Old Brixtonian
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