Beginning something with ‘So’ seems faddish to me. Albeit an irritating fad that simply displays the users poor knowledge of grammar, but a fad none the less. As such it appears more popular among younger people who are more susceptible to ‘monkey see, monkey do’ type mannerisms. They hear it on TV or pick it up in their social circle and so it goes. Before you know it everything that comes out of their mouth is prefixed with ‘So’ and they likely don’t even realize that they sound like an under educated buffoon.
Similarly, if you listen to television commercials you’ll notice the writers have the actors emphasize a particular phrase or mannerism. To most this is annoying, but they know kids will pick it up and mimic it.
Language usage has been declining for a number of years and I don’t expect things to change anytime soon. As a matter of fact I suspect we’re stuck with it.
What’s worse to me is initialisms. It seems there’s not a corporation on the planet that goes by their proper name anymore. WW. Really? It’s a lot easier to say Weight Watchers, but that wouldn’t be on trend. It also wouldn’t sound so stupid.
Any written, and even spoken account of anything is rife with initialisms. No one knows what the hell anyone is talking about. Sometimes it can be sorted out through context, but generally speaking you can find something like PYZ and RPM scattered throughout. Huh?!
Some common ones have become well known and generally understood but often I’ll see an advert for some company named QGI with no hint of what it’s supposed to stand for. As though in their mind they’re so well known that people will just know. Newspaper stories are big on the offenders list. I’ve even heard news readers use intitialisms. How much longer does it take to say 3 words than 3 initials? Dumb.