I think that it may have been at some point where a lot of technical expertise was necessary in the media, for instance in the 2008 financial crisis. it was a big deal as evidenced by the campaigns stopping to work on it. It required a lot of folks to go on air and answer obscure questions that they were prepared for already and were there to specifically address in their professional capacity. When they say “So…” I hear it as “Yes, thank you for your question. I have already researched this. Here are my findings.” It is a duologue situation to me which I interpreted the interviewer as also participating in. Maybe I was wrong. I’d like to hear the opinion of Noah Adams right now.
How many other issues are incoherent without expertise? Crypto currency mining is an example. Is this a theme in modern life. I think so. So…
But we have issues with truth vs nontruth now too. The “So…” meme can be used by those who wish to avoid the question asked and just propagandize. When they are called out they will point back to Shearer and Nunberg and say “Everybody does it!”
So, you think “So” as the beginning of a response is some sort of widely recognized signifier of an expansive claim of expertise on the part of the responder? I think that’s a highly idiosyncratic view, and you’re reading way too much into it. “So” is the same as “Uhm” or “Well”. It’s just a transitioner or spacer.
Can you provide any cites that the use of “So” is widely recognized as this sort of signifier?
I didn’t hear those other words. I heard one word over and over used by professionals in response to a technical question that they were called in to answer. They were reporting on items of national significance as part of their job.They do it intentionally in a way that they would not for Um or Well. It shows no signs of slowing down, or morphing into other words like um or well. It is a purposed and effective word to carry on an interview about technical matters. I don’t hear it as a lazy linguistic habit a la Shearer. He’s a comedian who makes fun.
Well we are in a technological society and at some point we needed good explanations for complicated stuff on the news. (Look at the intellectual level of the electorate for gods sake. We may not make it)
I’d say after 9/11, then the 2008 crisis, the effects of arcane technology on everyday life, all of these have led to a lot of explication by experts on the news. My guess is the use of “so” is more ingrained than just an interjection. I’m not saying it was a conspiracy but that there is a meaning and value to its use which makes it popular with professional communicators. I could be wrong.
It was my feeling at the start of this chat, but not a factual claim.
It’s a much more reasonable belief than the one that people say it at random, or that experts are just as likely to say Um or Well or any other random interjection as this one, say before speaking about covid in public. It isn’t said randomly or without purpose.
So(heh), are you saying that people have moved from filler or stalling words that make them sound uncertain or lost, and have moved to one that makes them sound as though they are responding logically to the question?
I can get behind that, sure. It was the idea that there was some sort of coaching or intentional almost conspiracy like intent behind it that I was objecting to.
It doesn’t take that long for such linguistic shifts to take place. Keep in mind that this is happening in the media, it is being broadcast, so when someone hears how other people respond in an interview, if they find themselves interviewed, they are likely to use the structures that make them sound better. If they hear people saying “um” or “err” or “well”, and think that those people sound stupid or manipulative, then they will not use that. If they hear people use “so” and that sounds like a good segue, then they will use that.
Respectfully, this is possibly the most extreme case of confirmation bias I’ve ever come across in the wild. Absolutely 100% of logic, evidence, and even, as you put it, “common sense,” is aligned against the possibility, or even the likelihood, that this use of “so” is unique among an endless list of verbal fillers such as “uh,” “well,” “sure,” “right,” or “that’s a great question,” as used by a nearly infinite range of interview subjects from a nearly infinite range of occupations, age, backgrounds, age, and states of mind; and on a huge variety of programs with each program’s respective producers toeing this line. The scale of this conspiracy boggles the mind, and yet no one can find one single source to corroborate it among the staggering number of individuals that would have to be aware of it. Not one single producer who would roll their eyes at such a directive and mention it as a ludicrous example of public radio hegemony. And even if this were so, what possible purpose could all this effort and secrecy serve? What possible benefit could there be from mandating this particular agrammatical tic in preference to all the other options?
I twice asked when you thought this phenomenon of overreach and conformity might have started. You did not answer directly, but you did say something to suggest it might have begun in the wake of 9/11/2001. I first noticed it in 1992,when an editor pointed out I had used it myself in two of three personal essays I had submitted to a now mercifully defunct zine. Ever since then it’s been just one of those things I’m weirdly aware of, like when someone uses “begs the question” correctly, or “apropos” incorrectly. It crops up in almost any context you can imagine, well beyond the stylistic ghetto of NPR.
I’m bilingual and I do this too. When I say my name, I say it the way it’s pronounced in its language of origin. Were I a public radio presenter, I would be one of those people.
No. People who talk on the media about their area of expertise have moved from these words. En masse. But I don’t ever recall any trend of experts saying “Err…”
[nitpick] By “Err…” do you mean “Uh…”? (I’ve seen it spelled “er” many a time, but always assumed this was just the British spelling of the sound that Americans would write out as “uh.” No one actually uses “eRRRRRRR,” pirate-style, as a filler sound…right?)[/nitpick]
By “Err” I mean any stalling word with no hard consonant or precise definition. Aaah would be one.
“So” is not a stalling word.
But the argument here seems to be that “So” is merely another stalling word and has not been used intentionally by interviewees, but just randomly, as if it didn’t matter if they said “Auu” or “Errum” instead.
I have heard all of those. And many more. Are you aware of the idea of confirmation bias? How it works?
In any case, your repetition of this entirely illogical, personally idiosyncratic projection of what each of those verbal tics signifies notwithstanding, you don’t address the actual points I made.
This is so irrational that I’m going to back away from this hill you’ve chosen to die on, and leave you to it. Peace.