just folks

See also: just-folks

English

just folks pl (plural only)

(idiomatic, sometimes used as if singular) Ordinary, unpretentious people; an ordinary, unpretentious person.
- 1913, Eleanor H. Porter, The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch, ch. 21:
  "You still think they come all boxed, sorted, and labeled, do you?" he said. "And that they aren't ‘just folks’ at all?"
  
  "Yes, I still think so. They never seem a bit like ‘folks’ to me. It's their business to sit up there stiff and solemn and stern."
- 1999, John Updike, Bech at Bay, →ISBN, p. 24 (Google preview):
  He was happy . . . to be going out to a restaurant without having to sign books or talk to students about Whitman and Melville. . . . Idolized Bech loved, at the end of a long day impersonating himself, being just folks.
- 2005 Jan. 11, Ruth La Ferla, "What the First Lady Will Wear," New York Times (retrieved 4 Dec 2012):
  "She has gone from being just folks to being a bit imperial, assuming a bit more of a queenly role," said Ms. Allgor.
(idiomatic, attributively, sometimes hyphenated) Unpretentious, informal, down-to-earth.
- 1961, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, →ISBN (1987 Penguin edition), p. 39 (Google preview):
  Even his mussed cravat and cow licked hair had a "just folks" quality.
- 2001 June 24, Margaret Carlson, "Shear Dismay," Time:
  George Bush's attempt at just-folks normalcy was undermined when he turned a blind eye to his chief of staff flying military jets to private appointments.

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