For the record, many Beach Boy songs start with the word “Well”.
I’m slowly catching up on that podcast and I listened to that a couple weeks and I was going to post a link to it myself if no one else had.
Other assorted verbal tics and habits also get discussed by that podcast.
It seems to have re-branded itself though as Spectacular Venacular, and on my feed at least, the episodes have a different icon than the Lexicon Valley one. (Looks like the host[s] changed again and maybe are taking the podcast in a new new direction)
There’s also “alora” is Italian. When teaching Italians (as in from Italy, not of Italian heritage), I heard the word “alora” so often I asked what it meant. Turns out it’s the same sort of placeholder as so or well.
With so, in English, some people don’t use it like that. They just seem to see it as a signifier that a sentence is starting. It seems to come up on reality shows more than anything else.
In my family, rather than interrupting each other, we would wave our cutlery/silverware at each other as an indication that we had something to add to the conversation. Worked very well until I went out into the wide world.
One of my friends walked up behind me at a party and borrowed the knife from my hand. I didn’t even notice at the time, but he later explained that the person I was waiting to talk to had developed a jumpy wide-eyed look…
The ellipsis above indicated the elision of the unnecessary explanation 
(Now, a few days ago I complained in some other thread about news reporters starting every paragraph with ‘now’, particularly when it creates a contradiction of time or date.)
I hadn’t noticed, since I’m behind!
“You are peeved by this mannerism. So, what?”
This usage of so has been around as long as I can remember. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense that it means “Who cares?”
My high school speech teacher called them “vocal pauses” and dinged us when we used them. I think that would be the true non-word like um, uh, ah, err that’s often used for buying time to think. Of course it’s also entirely possible that the person didn’t practice it enough. I don’t know if “vocal pause” would apply to actual words like well, so, and others. Mrs. L’s is “OK so…”
I have a nephew who abuses “know what I mean?” at the end of sentences. Everybody has a thing, I suppose. One that I never heard till moving to Texas was the misuse of “whenever.” Whenever I renew my driver’s license, I get up early. Repeated behaviors, yes, whenever. Whenever I got my first driver’s license, I got up early. No. That only happened once, say “When I got…” I hear this from people who are native English speakers, some with master’s degrees.
Au contraire, makes perfect sense to me: so == therefore in this context:
“And therefore…what?” as in, “What’s your point? Why do I care?”
Yep, “hesitation form” in linguistics. All languages seem to have them; they can vary by culture–different Spanish-speaking countries have different ones, I’m told (but different Spanish-speaking countries have a surprising number of differences–try asking for a drinking straw: 11 Spanish Words for DRINKING STRAW: Infographic ).
My favorite is Mandarin Chinese, where “nee-ga” is a common hesitation form (https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-common-Chinese-word-that-sounds-like-nigga-to-American-ears). Gotta be careful cross-languages/cultures!
I once had a roommate from Beijing. When he called home I heard him use that term a lot.
I don’t think “so” is necessarily a hesitation. It’s more of a general-purpose segue.
I don’t know, but what about, ‘Okay, so…’?
I kinda love to hear that! Especially if it’s your nerdy friend that’s into physics, or whatever. And you ask them some pertinent question you’ve been pondering about stars etc.
When they open with, ‘Okay, so…’, you know you’re about to get a boatload of nerdy goodness, carefully crafted for your ears and level of understanding, in like ten minutes! And it’s gonna be delightful!
phs3,
My bad. True dat.