I’m watching Charlie Rose’s show, which in my little town is delayed a day. He’s interviewing Michael Morell, the guy from the CIA who testified about Benghazi earlier this week. An abridged transcript of the actual first two questions:
Rose: What was your job when you first heard about Benghazi?
Morell: So I was number two at the CIA…
Rose: And how did you hear about it?
Morell:** So** I was in Amman, Jordan…
And he’s apparently going to keep starting all his answers with “So.”
What the hell is going on? I’ve been hearing this for a few years, from a few Silicon Vally types, but I thought it was just some kind of Valley-speak. But now it seems that it has taken over. First other scientists, and then pundits on every subject. Now even some actors on talk shows are doing it.
It’s not quite annoying enough to put this in the Pit, but it’s annoying. And distracting. You would think that the most brilliant people in the country wouldn’t adopt some stupid, annoying fad like this.
Many people have placeholder sounds they use while they are formulating their words, “filler words.” Given that a speaker is going to use a filler word, is “So” any worse than “Well”, “Hmmm”, “Like”, “Ahhh”, or “Uh”?
I listen to NPR at work and have [del]noticed[/del] been extremely irritated for years about the “so…” thing, to the point where I click off and simply refuse to listen further. It does seem very common with people under 40.
The only thing that irritates me more than this over-usage of “so” is starting an answer with “I mean” without having said anything yet that would need to be clarified. Make me crazy!!!
One of my fonder memories of high school was the time we decided to count all the times one of our teachers started sentences with “umm” in a single class. Even with an entire class trying, we couldn’t keep count.
I actually unconsciously use it a lot here, but not so much in verbal speech. I think it’s a way to “soften” what you’re about to say, kind of wade into the statement instead of jumping into the deep end. I also am constantly saying “I have a question . . .” which probably annoys people more.
I had a training class for work some years back. The trainer was excessively fond of “basically” and “essentially” as verbal crutches. In a single 4-hour session, he used “basically” something like 150 times and “essentially” at least 50 times. I couldn’t pay attention to what he was saying because I was busy counting. I think his record was saying “basically” 4 times in a single sentence.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss out by ignoring him - I had 13 years, including promotions and performance bonuses before I retired from there.
I most ardently support this Pitting! What? no Pit? OK, I’m still in support.
I’ve noticed this “So” trend myself recently. If I had to guess, I would say that the “So” meme is replacing the “I know, right?” meme.
It’s been noticed by listeners to a national science radio show here in Canada that many of the scientists being interviewed on the show begin their replies with “So.”
