only just happened

[James Bonde]

[FONT=&quot]We[/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened [/FONT][FONT=&#23435]— [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Jim allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened. [/FONT](From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)

What does "only just happened" mean?

 

[jutfrank]

They're discussing whether there's a God. Tom thinks that God made the stars but Huck thinks they somehow came into being without any kind of creation. They 'just happened' by themselves.

 

[GoesStation]

In Huck's dialect, "allowed" means expressed the belief that.

 

[Tdol]

It can be used that way in BrE too, but isn't very common nowadays.

 

[James Bonde]

They're discussing whether there's a God. Tom thinks that God made the stars but Huck thinks they somehow came into being without any kind of creation. They 'just happened' by themselves.

Does "only just" mean "a very short time ago", not simply "just"?

 

[GoesStation]

Does "only just" mean "a very short time ago", not simply "just"?

In this context it means "just".

 

[James Bonde]

In this context it means "just".

But in the dictionary and all the examples I can find, it means "not long ago".

It makes sense that " [FONT=&quot]discuss about whether they was made, or [/FONT]happened just now". Why is it necessarily "just" instead of "not long ago"?

 

[GoesStation]

Twain had a keen ear for dialect. Huck Finn uses the language of an uneducated poor white boy from antebellum (pre-Civil War) northeastern Missouri. He uses lots of phrases with meanings you won't find in a dictionary, including this one.

I know he didn't mean "not long ago" because that meaning doesn't fit the context. It doesn't contrast with the proposition that the stars were made by a creator.

 

[Tdol]

Here it is only/just happened.

 

[James Bonde]

In the same paragraph, "Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn’t say nothing against it, because I’ve seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they’d got spoiled and was hove out of the nest."

Does "got spoiled" mean " give a child everything with the result they behave badly"?

 

[GoesStation]

No. Hove is an obsolete past participle of "heave".

Jim allowed: Jim asserted

they’d got spoiled: they (the falling stars) had become rotten

and was hove out of the nest: and had been thrown out of the nest.