just-so story
1
8.9
- noun
- /ˈdʒʌst soʊ ˈstɔri/
- In one of his celebrated just-so stories, Rudyard Kipling recounted how the leopard got his spots.
Examples
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As far as the specific issues go, some (a lot of the evolutionary psych stuff) are pretty speculative, and I always cringe at how quickly some people will whip out a just-so story from some imagined ancestral environment to explain whatever data they have.
Blog text (8) -
Goofy just-so stories can be made up to support almost any position, and they ought to be attacked because they're goofy just-so stories, not because of the moral status of their claims.
Blog text (8) -
He called his answers "just-so stories."
Blog text (32) -
Yet much of this paper is a just-so story, and several non-ID-friendly critics have pointed this out (see here, here, and here).
Blog text (13) -
Evolutionary psychology, for example, presents an endless array of just-so stories as bad as those put forth by New Agers.
Blog text (22) -
I think your characterization of evolutionary psychology as all bullshit just-so stories intended to show that white males are destined to be on top is deeply unfair and reflects the fact that you haven't read much of it.
Blog text (8) -
The usefulness of the trait can't be invented ad hoc; if it is, you don't have a legitimate evolutionary explanation but a "just-so story" or fairy tale.
Academic text (2006) -
Her favorite just-so story explains how the elephant got its trunk.
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The professor introduced the idea of just-so stories to illustrate how cultures create myths to explain natural phenomena.
Synonyms
20
7.2
A long story that is probably not true
19
4.0
A story that says things are bigger or more amazing than they really are to be funny
15
3.4
A made-up story told to hide the truth or deceive people
10
4.6
A made-up story used to avoid blame or trick people
7
4.6
A very exciting tale that is often not true
1
5.5
A made up story told to hide the truth
A made-up story told in a big, exciting way to amuse people
Antonyms
How Plausible
Surface Forms
Morphology
just-so + story
Although the noun 'story' is transparent, the modifier 'just-so' is an idiomatic, culture-specific adjective whose sense of 'contrived, fanciful explanatory tale' is not predictably derived from knowing 'just' + 'so'. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely misinterpret it (e.g., as 'exactly right story') and would not reliably infer the idiomatic meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Just-so story comes from old children's tales that give a neat, made-up reason for something, like a tale about 'why zebras have stripes'. Because these tales sound simple and certain but are not based on facts, people now call any neat but made-up explanation a 'just-so story'.