As has been said, this is not new though perhaps more prevalent now. Many languages have an equivalent such as ‘alors’ in French or ‘allora’ in Italian which both mean ‘now’ but are used in a kind of ‘OK then, here we go’ sense to start a sentence.
To me, it often means ‘the answer I am about to give you is not necessarily the one you want’.
“Am I getting a pay rise this year?”
“So, this is something we’ve been carefully considering...”. (15 minutes later, an answer equating to ‘no way’).
Now this is an interesting question because ‘now’ sometimes performs a similar gathering/place-holding function. There’s also a word in Hebrew (nah?) which does the same sort of thing and having in some contexts next to no semantic value.
Is that the same nah that is the second half of Hosha-nah (Hosanna)?
It seems, as others have said here, to be another way of beginning a sentence instead of with the word 'well'. I'm resigned to hearing it, but it still seems strange. 'Well' as the beginning to a sentence sounds inviting, speculative, neutral. Whereas 'so' as the opening word in a sentence is more of a statement.
It also sounds to me as if the question that has received the response beginning 'So.....' has also somehow been ignored or marginalised.
'Do you think all schools should open by the end of March?'
'Well, we'd like to consider the science a little closer to the date and review the situation.' This actually sounds like a question has been heard, considered and answered. Whereas 'Schools opening by the end of March?' being answered with: 'So, we're going to consider the science etc' sounds a bit like 'Anyway, here's my answer whatever the question is!' But that's just because this new use of 'so' is so new to me!
I suppose I come from a generation that used 'so' as the beginning of a new thought stream, or as a kind of gathering word. 'So, let's review what we've got here'. Or even as a way of moving on, as in 'So, let's concentrate on where we need to be.' It's even one of those words that's used as a neat and often pointed means of ignoring what has just been said 'So, anyway, back to the important point.'
I can see that it's moving to occupy a new way of being used in casual speech. No doubt it'll stop sounding strange after a while. Fascinating watching the language change.
Having heard few live conversations over the past year, the most frequent use of So to begin a sentence that I have seen have been in print and entirely gratuitous. On other Forums ( Fora?) I frequent, a opening poster may begin telling their story with So. As nothing has gone before, no link word is needed. This is the use that irritates me.
When I hear older people speak, admittedly in response to a question or remark, they often begin with Well, or Er. I have decided that So must be the current equivalent. Whilst I am irritated a little by Well and even more by Er, I have come to accept that this is a way of buying time before getting stuck in, so to speak. See what I did there? ( Now where did that phrase come from?)
So @Telford, what's your own personal take on this? Are you averse to the point you have raised?
My personal take is that it is fashionable and a lot of people are like sheep.
A bit like those who start a sentence by saying " Yoy know what "
Language is fundamentally ABOUT people being like sheep. The whole point is that you utter sounds that are like the sounds that other people around you make.
As a child who largely preferred interacting with books to interacting with people I for some time used "I say" as a sentence-starter in a way that might have been popular circa 1920 (whereas I was growing up in the 1980s). I did this without noticing it until my cousin said "Why do you keep saying 'I say'; it sounds weird!"
On other Forums ( Fora?) I frequent, a opening poster may begin telling their story with So. As nothing has gone before, no link word is needed. This is the use that irritates me.
As I rather flippantly pointed out in reply to @Telford's similar complaint, the most famous story in Old English begins in very much this manner, so you seem to be decrying a "modern" use that is at least a thousand years old.
It seems, as others have said here, to be another way of beginning a sentence instead of with the word 'well'. I'm resigned to hearing it, but it still seems strange. 'Well' as the beginning to a sentence sounds inviting, speculative, neutral. Whereas 'so' as the opening word in a sentence is more of a statement.
Not everything that people say is either speculative or neutral. I once had a boss who regularly started discussions with "So", and when she did that, it was generally "enough fannying about, you've got to actually get on and do something now / you need to make a decision" In other words, it was the kind of gathering / moving on use that you refer to, but gathered prior conversations, rather than an earlier part of the current conversation.
It seems that the use that is being decried is one I hear often in stand-up comedy ("So I walked in to a bar ...", "So there were these three guys, right..."), but I think it's occupying the same role there - it's a verbal marker, a shift of subject. "Here's the start of a new story".
On other Forums ( Fora?) I frequent, a opening poster may begin telling their story with So. As nothing has gone before, no link word is needed. This is the use that irritates me.
As I rather flippantly pointed out in reply to @Telford's similar complaint, the most famous story in Old English begins in very much this manner, so you seem to be decrying a "modern" use that is at least a thousand years old.
It seems, as others have said here, to be another way of beginning a sentence instead of with the word 'well'. I'm resigned to hearing it, but it still seems strange. 'Well' as the beginning to a sentence sounds inviting, speculative, neutral. Whereas 'so' as the opening word in a sentence is more of a statement.
Not everything that people say is either speculative or neutral. I once had a boss who regularly started discussions with "So", and when she did that, it was generally "enough fannying about, you've got to actually get on and do something now / you need to make a decision" In other words, it was the kind of gathering / moving on use that you refer to, but gathered prior conversations, rather than an earlier part of the current conversation.
Quite. I certainly recognize that particular use of the word 'so', and have always understood it in that way which is why I included an example of that usage. It's the newer use of it that seems peculiar to me, the running on of an interactive conversation, where someone isn't gathering or moving on, or putting an end to fannying about. A bit like the OP example, when the Pointless quiz host asks 'what is your answer' and the answer begins 'So.....'
The thousand year old 'modern' use of 'so' referring to Beowulf (was it?), however. Surely, that's a use of the word as a declarative 'therefore' or 'listen up'. As someone said, 'behold' or 'lo'. That would've made sense in what went before (nothing) and what followed - a tale being told by a speaker to an audience. Different context altogether. Anyway. So. I don't suppose it matters!
Now this is an interesting question because ‘now’ sometimes performs a similar gathering/place-holding function. There’s also a word in Hebrew (nah?) which does the same sort of thing and having in some contexts next to no semantic value.
Is that the same nah that is the second half of Hosha-nah (Hosanna)?
Yes it is. The particle נָא (na - my previous transliteration was incorrect) is combined with the verb form הושיעה (hōšî‘āh).
It is significant that the phrase הושיעה־נא is from Ps118 (v.25) which is the last of the 'Hallel psalms' recited at Passover.
As a child who largely preferred interacting with books to interacting with people I for some time used "I say" as a sentence-starter in a way that might have been popular circa 1920 (whereas I was growing up in the 1980s). I did this without noticing it until my cousin said "Why do you keep saying 'I say'; it sounds weird!"
Alice (in Wonderland) was always beginning sentences with ‘Come’ which I found odd.
I find it really interesting that my young grandson has started copying others, by putting 'so' at the beginning of his answers to questions. Particularly as he has speech difficulties, so his ability to speak in sentences is quite recently acquired. Before that, he used 'umm' to give him time to think how he was going to formulate what he was going to say. 'So' sounds much more confident than 'umm'.
A couple of my acquaintances with speech difficulties use a similar strategy, inserting the word "there" into a sentence where they might stutter or stammer. It allows them to communicate effectively without stress.
This will interest the odd language needs, but the verb 'to be' in Welsh has two alternate sets of forms- ydwyf, ydwyt, ydyw etc. and wyf, wyt, yw.
Welsh verbs come at the beginning of the sentence.
Guess what the particle yd, now meaningless, originally meant...
I started learning a bit of Welsh a few years ago and often got confused about the various dw/ydw/rydw verbs. I am a bit of a linguistic nerd, so this is very interesting, thank you!
The English language constantly evolves, or we would still be talking like Chaucer.
England has never had, or seen the need to have, the equivalent of the Académie Française. Maybe we should consider it. It would create some useful employment. Well, some employment, anyway. Johnson could appoint one of his chums to be Director on £300k a year, part-time.
I find it really interesting that my young grandson has started copying others, by putting 'so' at the beginning of his answers to questions. Particularly as he has speech difficulties, so his ability to speak in sentences is quite recently acquired. Before that, he used 'umm' to give him time to think how he was going to formulate what he was going to say. 'So' sounds much more confident than 'umm'.
Yeah. Much better than 'uhm' and 'er'. Which I still do. But a lot of these phrases in spoken language are place-holders after all, for thinking time. Maybe we shouldn't worry too much about what they are exactly.
I heard a bit of Nadine Dorries being interviewed on (I think) Women’s Hour a few days ago. She started most of her responses with a slow “..So......(blah blah blah)”. Clearly a device to allow her a few more seconds to attempt to cobble together a coherent answer, which, being on the subject of nurses’ pay, proved singularly unsuccessful.
If you replace "so" with "f--k", do these read the same to you?
No. Fuck has a guttural feel to it. It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate.
If you replace "so" with "f--k", do these read the same to you?
No. Fuck has a guttural feel to it. It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate.
If you replace "so" with "f--k", do these read the same to you?
No. Fuck has a guttural feel to it. It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate.
What about "Fuck off." A very proper and sometimes appropriate sentence.
So many people have posted on this thread that it's now near the foot of page 3.
If you replace "so" with "f--k", do these read the same to you?
No. Fuck has a guttural feel to it. It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate.
What about "Fuck off." A very proper and sometimes appropriate sentence.
Well yes but you wouldn't start a generic sentence with "Fuck off" the way you would with "So". So it's really not a very good comparison.
So many people have posted on this thread that it's now near the foot of page 3.
If you replace "so" with "f--k", do these read the same to you?
No. Fuck has a guttural feel to it. It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate.
What about "Fuck off." A very proper and sometimes appropriate sentence.
Well yes but you wouldn't start a generic sentence with "Fuck off" the way you would with "So". So it's really not a very good comparison.
I did not pick up that limitation in your comment "It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate."
So many people have posted on this thread that it's now near the foot of page 3.
A proper sentence starting with a So, the whole point of the thread.
So there's a difference, I think. @mousethief was not claiming that no sentence can be started with the word "fuck" - that's obviously not true. He was claiming that you can't tack a "fuck" on the front of a sentence in the same basically meaningless way as you can add "so".
Something like "Fuck, that really hurts" might come closest, but even there, the fuck is adding value as an intensifier.
And of course, any series of words can be used to start a sentence. If you have a series of words $WORDS, then '"$WORDS" is a well-formed sentence' is a syntactically correct sentence. It might be a false statement, but I'm sure the reader could make the necessary modification to make it both syntactically valid and true without much difficulty.
Comments
To me, it often means ‘the answer I am about to give you is not necessarily the one you want’.
“Am I getting a pay rise this year?”
“So, this is something we’ve been carefully considering...”. (15 minutes later, an answer equating to ‘no way’).
(I love the rabbit holes the Ship sends me down when I *should* be doing housework!)
We did Beowulf at school but no mention was made of the translation of the first word being disputed. Mind you, that was a little while ago.
Is that the same nah that is the second half of Hosha-nah (Hosanna)?
It also sounds to me as if the question that has received the response beginning 'So.....' has also somehow been ignored or marginalised.
'Do you think all schools should open by the end of March?'
'Well, we'd like to consider the science a little closer to the date and review the situation.' This actually sounds like a question has been heard, considered and answered. Whereas 'Schools opening by the end of March?' being answered with: 'So, we're going to consider the science etc' sounds a bit like 'Anyway, here's my answer whatever the question is!' But that's just because this new use of 'so' is so new to me!
I suppose I come from a generation that used 'so' as the beginning of a new thought stream, or as a kind of gathering word. 'So, let's review what we've got here'. Or even as a way of moving on, as in 'So, let's concentrate on where we need to be.' It's even one of those words that's used as a neat and often pointed means of ignoring what has just been said 'So, anyway, back to the important point.'
I can see that it's moving to occupy a new way of being used in casual speech. No doubt it'll stop sounding strange after a while. Fascinating watching the language change.
Only when the people who use it stop seeming strange.
When I hear older people speak, admittedly in response to a question or remark, they often begin with Well, or Er. I have decided that So must be the current equivalent. Whilst I am irritated a little by Well and even more by Er, I have come to accept that this is a way of buying time before getting stuck in, so to speak. See what I did there? ( Now where did that phrase come from?)
Bah.
As I rather flippantly pointed out in reply to @Telford's similar complaint, the most famous story in Old English begins in very much this manner, so you seem to be decrying a "modern" use that is at least a thousand years old.
Not everything that people say is either speculative or neutral. I once had a boss who regularly started discussions with "So", and when she did that, it was generally "enough fannying about, you've got to actually get on and do something now / you need to make a decision" In other words, it was the kind of gathering / moving on use that you refer to, but gathered prior conversations, rather than an earlier part of the current conversation.
It seems that the use that is being decried is one I hear often in stand-up comedy ("So I walked in to a bar ...", "So there were these three guys, right..."), but I think it's occupying the same role there - it's a verbal marker, a shift of subject. "Here's the start of a new story".
The thousand year old 'modern' use of 'so' referring to Beowulf (was it?), however. Surely, that's a use of the word as a declarative 'therefore' or 'listen up'. As someone said, 'behold' or 'lo'. That would've made sense in what went before (nothing) and what followed - a tale being told by a speaker to an audience. Different context altogether. Anyway. So. I don't suppose it matters!
Yes it is. The particle נָא (na - my previous transliteration was incorrect) is combined with the verb form הושיעה (hōšî‘āh).
It is significant that the phrase הושיעה־נא is from Ps118 (v.25) which is the last of the 'Hallel psalms' recited at Passover.
Alice (in Wonderland) was always beginning sentences with ‘Come’ which I found odd.
So, many people have posted on this thread.
Compare and contrast.
I started learning a bit of Welsh a few years ago and often got confused about the various dw/ydw/rydw verbs. I am a bit of a linguistic nerd, so this is very interesting, thank you!
England has never had, or seen the need to have, the equivalent of the Académie Française. Maybe we should consider it. It would create some useful employment. Well, some employment, anyway. Johnson could appoint one of his chums to be Director on £300k a year, part-time.
Yeah. Much better than 'uhm' and 'er'. Which I still do. But a lot of these phrases in spoken language are place-holders after all, for thinking time. Maybe we shouldn't worry too much about what they are exactly.
No, "What?".
That sentence doesn't start with 'So'. 'So tired I couldn't keep my eyes open.' does.
And?
No. Fuck has a guttural feel to it. It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate.
I would never start a sentence with an obsccnity
What about "Fuck off." A very proper and sometimes appropriate sentence.
So many people have posted on this thread that it's now near the foot of page 3.
Well yes but you wouldn't start a generic sentence with "Fuck off" the way you would with "So". So it's really not a very good comparison.
So?
I did not pick up that limitation in your comment "It's also not traditionally used to start sentences with (as opposed to, say, "Fuck it") so it sounds out of place. Also the comparison sounds forced and desperate."
A proper sentence starting with a So, the whole point of the thread.
I'm sorry you missed the humor of my second response.
I now see the humour, which I'd totally missed before, not just the start of the sentence, but its body and conclusion as well.
Something like "Fuck, that really hurts" might come closest, but even there, the fuck is adding value as an intensifier.
And of course, any series of words can be used to start a sentence. If you have a series of words $WORDS, then '"$WORDS" is a well-formed sentence' is a syntactically correct sentence. It might be a false statement, but I'm sure the reader could make the necessary modification to make it both syntactically valid and true without much difficulty.