Add me to the list of boomers who start sentences with “so”. It’s something i spend a fair amount of time editing out of my written speech, because…i guess it doesn’t really add anything, and seems informal. But that tells me that i probably say it a lot.
Has anyone mentioned, “I get the feels” or “He gives me all the feels”?
BLECH!
I’m starting to think that it’s something beyond simply starting sentences with “so”. There’s kind of a lilt and a pause that comes with it … kind of a “doubtful” or “questioning” intonation that’s used whether the speaker actually has any doubts or not:
Customer: Excuse me, can you tell me where the ketchup packets are?
Cashier (with a doubtful/questioning intonation): So … they’re next to the napkins on the condiment bar(?)
A comparison could be made between this new-school use of “so …” and the use of the phrase “Oh my god!” in early 1980s “Valley Girl” speak. English speakers in general have been using “Oh my god” forever, but the Valley Girls intoned it in an unmistakable just-so way.
I’ll quote @Jackknifed_Juggernaut to invite his response.
Juggernaut, do you distinguish between these following two cases? If so, is one or the other closer to what you were getting at in your OP?
CASE 1
Co-worker: “Gen X Person, you took the bus today? Where’s your car?”
Gen X Person (matter-of-fact intonation) “So I took my car to the mechanic and he told me I needed a new Johnson rod.”
Co-worker: “Bummer.”
CASE 2
Co-worker: “Millennial, you took the bus today? Where’s your car?”
Millennial (doubtful/questioning intonation): “So … I took my car to the mechanic (?) and he told me I needed a new Johnson rod (?)”
Co-worker: “I don’t know, Millennial – I’m asking you.”
I didn’t, but the 2nd example is definitely worse with the statements being turned into questions. But I have begun using “so” in a manner similar to the 1st, and I annoy myself when I do.
And you are allowed to shoot me if I ever sound like the 2nd one.
My children played a lot of sport and started using the term ‘versing’ - as in ‘playing against’ someone competetively.
I’ve adopted it (it took some time). It makes more sense than the clunky ‘playing against’, and it comes, obviously, from ‘versus’ which is a very common everyday term. It’s not creating a ‘new’ word to replace a previous one, it’s creating a single word where no single word existed before.
Strangely, many folk do not agree with me, and come after me brandishing dictionaries and Rules of Grammar. But that’s OK. I’m down wid da kool kids.
Fairly recently, I started using “af” (short for “as fuck”) in texts and in speech. I do it more as a joke than because I’m trying to sound cool, though. “That game was lit af.”
Ugh. Hate it.
The people who use that also tend to pronounce “vs.” as “verse” instead of “versus.”
We just say “playing”, and leave out the “against”. Never heard “versing”, but maybe it should be “versusing”, based on ascenray’s comment. I keed, I keed.
Came in this thread to mention this. I do not much watch shows like Love Bachelorette Temptation Island, but in the minutes I’ve turned in they seem to use this phrase every few minutes.
I guess I’m glad I don’t watch any of them either!