Posted on 11/19/2013 6:54:38 AM PST by don-o
I was taught that a preposition is a bad thing with which to end a sentence. I do not recall being taught about beginning a sentence with an adverb. I raise the matter, because recently I have heard an increasing use of the word “so” as the first word in a sentence in response to a question.
I first noticed this in Congressional hearings. Now I am hearing it on the radio. On NPR this morning there was a story about the relationship between commute to work times and political involvement. The interviewee spoke English well, with perhaps an Indian accent. In a five to eight minute piece, he began maybe five of his responses with “so”
My questions are:
1. Has anyone else noticed this?
2. Is it a new speech pattern?
3. How did it get started?
Yes, I noticed this trend well over two years ago.
I began hearing the “So”, as the first word in reply to a question, primarily from the High-Tech community.
It seems to be an attempt to replace the word “Well”, which was standard fair as the first word uttered when replying to a question.
So, you’re saying that SO at the beginning of a sentence annoys you? So should we stop saying it? So, OK, I’ll stop saying it. So you’ll be happy?
So now let’s work on LIKE: you know, like man know what I’m sayin?
And what prepositions shouldn’t we end a sentence with?
LOL! Fixed it and saved type in the process.
Seriously, though, I didn't even realize I punctuated my sentences with OK like a longshoreman does with the f--- word. It came to my attention when I got a part-time job teaching English in Japan back in 1988. My family was still stateside at the time awaiting visas and transportation over. I needed something to fill evenings and weekends and these jobs were fairly easy to come by back then, especially if you spoke fairly passable Japanese, which I did.
So next thing I know, my classes are fairly full and the students are saying "OK" every few words. I resolved then and there to get rid of that speech habit and have never gone back.
I think it was kind of like parents who gave up smoking cold turkey when they discovered their kids were mimicking them.
I have listened to young people, teens and early 20’s who use “like” so often that it is difficult to know what the f... they are talking about. Some people rely on the f... word too much as well.
And I have noticed that it is mostly liberals who are using “So” when answering questions.
“So” is both an adverb and a conjunction. Often, beginning a sentence with an adverb is not a problem. If “so” is used to mean “in this way” and is set off with a comma, it can begin a sentence. “So, they agreed, they would build the shelter.” That is, they would build the shelter “in this way.”
However, beginning a sentence with the conjuction “so” is just as incorrect as beginning the sentence with “and,” “but,” or “or.” We don’t do that. I don’t think the “so” thing is any more annoying than other conjuctions adrift, but it does seem to be new.
Many years ago I worked in an environment that was basically cubicles without walls.
Whenever one of our co-workers got on the phone, another co-worker and I would pull out a stack of $1 bills and proceed to place bets on how many times he would say certain words or phrases.
After a few weeks of him seeing us pass dollar bills back and forth, he finally asked us what we were doing.
This cured him of saying things like “Okie-Dokie” and “You Know”.
Very funny.
I are writing gooder and speaking weller since I went to Harvard.
used to do a similar deal during corpoate conference calls, each listener in our branch had a card for “Bullshit Bingo”
I dislike it as much as beginning the sentence with “And”!
Sean Hannity is literally over the top with his incessant use of “literally”!
However, the horrific and universal misuse of the word "gender" to [wrongly] replace the word "sex" is a hell of a lot more disturbing, on many levels, than "product" for "products," ending a sentence with a preposition, or beginning a sentence with the word "so." Hell, even Jane Austen ended sentences with prepositions.
"So" at the front of a sentence or a preposition at the end of one, doesn't subtly reduce a very real animal fact -- that of an individual's sex -- to the status of inanimate, minor import, which describes the word "gender," a strictly grammatical term. Using the word "gender" in place of the word "sex" is lying, it is downplaying the reality of a person's sex, and stating instead that a person's sex is actually arbitrary, the same as the GENDER in grammar is arbitrary -- for instance, the word for "tree" in Spanish has the male gender, and the word for "person," whether that person is a man, boy, woman, or girl, has the feminine gender. Gender and sex are ENTIRELY different from each other. SADLY, even dictionaries have now added the word "sex" as one of the definitions of the word "gender."
That upsets me a whole helluva lot more than misplaced prepositions, etc.
It’s not just a sentence initiator but it’s also being used excessively as a sentence completer.
I hear PROFESSIONAL people constantly saying, “I would like to see the projections for the fourth quarter, so...” with that “so” just hanging out there like it’s a vocal period or expectation for further conversation.
I hear it SO OFTEN now that it grates on me and makes me think less of a professional person because they do it.
There is another trend that drives me crazy.
It is all over the Internet.
“Hooks” if you will, that appear on ads and story headlines to get people to click on them.
The Blaze uses them everywhere on stories.
“One weird trick”
“A little known secret”
“You won’t believe how/what/who” etc...
“You probably haven’t heard/seen” etc...
There are many more examples.
Does anyone remember the “Well Basically Club” on Monty Python? If you started a sentence without saying “well, basically . . .” you were out!
Yes. Don't expect your reader to understand you if you don't know when to use 'then' or 'than', 'of' or 'have'. We ought not resent the grammar police; we should learn from them.
The grammatical skill of untaught frontiersmen of generations past surpasses even most Ivy league graduates these days. The high point of the language is far behind us.
Perfect example of “Bullshit Bingo” Thanks !
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