I have noticed over the course of the last 8 months to a year, that the word “so” has become more and more prevelent in spoken conversation.
It seems to be used as a subconsious pause, just as “like” has been over-used by people when speaking.
However, “So” seems to be appearing in a lot of written english as well.
Sentences starting with “So” seem to be everywhere.
I mentioned this to my wife, who at first had no idea what I was talking about, and now she is mad at me for poining it out, because she says she hears it everywhere at work, and it is driving her nuts.
Is this something that has always been in english, and I just happened to notice it recently? Or is this something that has occurred recently?
I don’t know if this phenomenon has a specific name, or is just one of those things…
But if anyone knows the answer to this, it might help my wife sleep better.
It is a lot older than a year old. I first started noticing it in college over 20 years ago and some people in graduate school started a majority of their thoughts that way. I personally find it jarring especially written as the first word of a new thought or post and don’t use the word in that way. My first reaction is “We were not in the middle of a conversation!”. If we weren’t already in the middle of a conversation and the person speaking isn’t using it to join two related thoughts together than it shouldn’t be used IMO. I only use it as a replacement for the more formal “therefore” and nobody starts a new conversation or thought with that.
In my experience, people that use “So” to start new thoughts are a little unsure of themselves so they throw it in as a filler word rather just just skipping it and diving straight into a more direct form of the thought. You can almost always eliminate it completely without changing anything else and achieve better style.
Example:
“So I was driving down the road the other day and this dog ran out in front of me.”
should be
“I was I was driving down the road the other day and this dog ran out in front of me”.
You didn’t lose anything by ditching the word and it sounds better stylistically.
I start written sentences here with “so” fairly frequently. But that’s because many of my posts are chains of logic. Each such sentence could be started with “As a consequence of the foregoing …”, or “Therefore …” but “so” seems so, I don’t know, more concise.
Other than that kind of usage, which I admit I may overdo, “so” is a verbal/writing tic that should be stamped out. Certainly Shagnasty’s example of the wrong way is accurately wrong.
I noticed what you’re talking about around a year ago while listening to a talk show on my walkman. Since then it’s occured to me that “maybe” it’s something that alien beings do in order to secretly let others of their kind know that more and more of them are arriving. Very often I’d hear a show’s host ask something like, “Do you think things will improve in the near future?” And, just like you say, they’ll say something like, “So, in time things likely will get better blah blah blah.”
It kinda blew my mind that someone posted about this because I think about it often and think how very odd it is. Also, with no disrespect to the other person answering, this phenomina IMO is in fact something new, I’m sure of it.
There are some recent articles on this subject that describe the social and linguistic reasons why it is trending as a “marker” term. Some say it is bad (correct) while others say it still provides useful information (fire them):
No disrespect taken. I can promise you that it is nothing new. The articles I posted show that as well. It may be trending and more people are exposed to it now but it has been around for multiple decades. I have bitched about it for years including on this board many years ago but it is going to be hard to find those posts because it is a two letter word. It was also a common construct on Usenet during the mid-1990’s. I don’t know if it originated in colleges but that is where I first heard it used that way over 20 years ago and the perpetrators were very generous with their examples. When I started at my current job 5 years ago, I respected my boss but soon found out he was a habitual “So” abuser and probably had been for quite some time just as he is to this day.
The best I can testify to is that it has been in common use in that form for over 20 years at least in some circles, many of which were very geographically separated.
ETA:
Thanks Leaffan. One of the threads linked within one of your links goes back to 2002 so that shows that people were already complaining about it in the earlier days of this board.
I worked with a girl about 7 years ago who did this. It was extremely irritating. Now it’s so common that I don’t even notice. I catch myself doing it too and it’s quite upsetting.
I’m also getting sick of people saying “Really?” in that smarmy tone every time they disapprove of someone else’s actions or words.
language is not some rigid, inflexible, unchangeable concept. look at how English speakers spoke and wrote a couple of hundred years ago. It’ll look like overbearing bloviating. and how long has it been since anyone’s used the Long S?
I argue that it isn’t really about pure grammar or transient style but really about immutable linguistic concepts. The issue with starting a new thought or conversation with the word “So” can indicate only a few things and none of them are good for the speaker/writer or the listener.
The speaker/writer is insecure about what they are about to communicate.
They used the word as a marker to let you know what they are about to communicate is prepared beforehand and they are just delivering the scripted message (most common when answering questions under pressure).
They are being condescending to the audience and think that they need to dumb things down to provide something like a technical explanation but without giving all the necessary details (therefore subtly announcing beforehand that they are jumping from a premise to a conclusion and you better just accept what they say in the next few sentences).
All of those problems can be avoided by avoiding the construction entirely and by communicating in direct sentences that treat the intended audience with respect and make the person communicating sound both more confident and competent.
Thanks for your understanding, sir. And, too, thanks for the links showing that this in fact isn’t anything new after all. I guess something just clicked in my head…
If you play with Toastmasters, So is one of the “crutch words” like uh, um, ah, like, and ‘you know.’ The ‘Ah Counter’ for the meeting will also count starting sentences with the word And, if it isn’t needed or happens too often.
My take is that because conversations generally go back and forth, switching sides when a person stops talking, these filler words signal, ‘I haven’t stopped talking yet.’ Done sparsely, they’re not too bad. In a speech, they are deadly.
For public speaking it takes practice to learn to accept your pauses. I’d imagine it takes deliberate practice to ban them from conversation as well, but I don’t have experience with that.
Thank you for the links. I tried searching, but “so” is two letters, and that doesn’t play well.
2002? I had no idea.
I find it completely distracting. I also have found myself saying it more than I ever did before, and everytime I say it, I get annoyed. As Shagnasty’s example points out, you never need to start a sentence with “so”, and when I find myself slipping into that habit, I want to scream.
I cannot believe I missed this trend for over a decade… Why on earth did my “so” filter break?
She isn’t. I just added that for effect. She now tells me at least once a week how she sat in a meeting and heard nothing but the word “so”. She never noticed it before, and now she hears it all the time. And she does “so” counts now on the biggest offenders.
My mother-in-law doesn’t use it at the beginning of sentences, but at the end of a sentence, or as a pause between trains of thought. It comes out as a soft “so…” because she doesn’t have anything else to say at the time. It is VERY annoying.
