I am the 'so' police.
I demand for the first and last time, stamping it upon this thread for all eternity, that people stop starting their writing and speaking with the word 'so'.
Corollarilly, it is a fine of 250K$, equal the to my-gender-is misidentification offense fine in NY, to begin the answer to a question with 'so.' As in "What is 2 + 2?" ... "So if you add the numbers 2 + 2, you get this sort of 4." 'Sort of' and 'This' are also outlawed in such a context.
I first started hearing it in Cambridge MA about 15 years ago, presumably it bled from or into NPR, and now it's everywhere in every sentence all the time, mostly fake intellectual liberals, but sometimes conservatives. It must stop, and if it doesn't, I will be very angry, and I will post this post stating that I am very angry.
For those who use it constantly, it has the effect that when one hears it one immediately identifies the transgressor as 'this' 'sort of' follower / repeater / relayer (most often fake intellectual liberal) rather than original thinker or leader. Kills me that the good guys are starting to do it.
STOP IT!!!!!!
Am I preaching to the choir?
So, what are you going to do about. So what. So I guess you don’t like my so-so response. I agree, “so” is becoming a pet peeve of mine too. People say it to link their thoughts to the thoughts of the person they are responding to. This is unneeded in writing and redundant in speech.
Cannot recall exactly when I noticed the “so” phenomenon. But, it’s a plague.
What is wrong with uhhhhhh?