Pedants' Paradise

[Alain Maréchal]

As in 'You are so right...', or even 'I so do', 'I so can', etc.

Yet they are often, like, so not speaking to you.

[ahinton]

Me either (or should that be Me neither?)

I guess that it could be either - but let's Carl the whole thing Orff, as the Gershwins didn't quite say...

[ahinton]

... litotes, ahinton, means understatement. I think jean is nudging you to reread what she said in that light...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes

I got that bit; what I didn't and still don't get was the point of understating a distance when it's in reality not just from Hampshire west to, say, neighbouring Wiltshire but to several counties farther away ather than, for example, on the eastern seaboard of US. I'd assume that use of litotes to include the revelation of some point for its use which, to me at least, remains less than clear.

... of course she may have also intended meiosis

She might indeed have done but did not say so; either way, however, I'd so have expected understatement to have like a more obvious point to it, boyo, I mean look you, see...

[kernelbogey]

These llinguistic tics were beautifully lampooned in John Lloyd's Twenty Twelve, and W1A.

[ahinton]

These llinguistic tics

Ah, the Welsh version to which I presume jean to have implicitly referred! Presumably they tics yer bocs...

[Pulcinella]

These llinguistic tics were beautifully lampooned in John Lloyd's Twenty Twelve, and W1A.

Is that a typo or a reference to our llook you friends, who have that 'letter' in their alphabet?

(I understand jean's comment now, by the way!)

PS: Cross posted, to the same effect!

[kernelbogey]

So, it's, like, a typo?

(Note to self: new glasses, please.)

[Serial_Apologist]

So, it's, like, a typo?

(Note to self: new glasses, please.)

It quite llanish, isn't it!

[Lat-Literal]

Having pondered this situation briefly , I think on balance I would be more upset by somebody breaking my umbrella, than by having to share my middle name with a cow. However, I think either of these grievances would be dwarfed by what I'd have felt if my parents had given me the middle name Ermintrude.

Me too, that one always seems to be knocking about somewhere. Can't recall hearing the 'Danger' one anywhere. Nor for that matter the Ermintrude one until tonight.

I heard that - admittedly from a father whose own parents had named him "Mousse"! (I'd misheard, and thought he was still talking about his own name, and for the previous twenty-four hours had actually thought that there was a chap walking around whose parents had called him "Danger Mousse"!

So.......I've just spotted these.

[Lat-Literal]

That "so" thing drives me crackers.

It is probably the worst thing I have ever heard.

Corporations, science, politicians, increasingly the arts and the under 35s.

Key programme - "You and Yours" (BBC R4)........but it's everywhere!

I reckon it is short for "the answer is" which implies that what has been asked is a quiz question. However, it can be produced when a genuine response is required, either as an explanation or - if put on the spot - a defence. It is, therefore, a steadying point - "I will get my thoughts together, will not be knocked off course and will avoid responsibility".

There is often the implication it is a professional line to take - "now, let me see, what part of my briefing should I bring out here" - rather than a personal position - "I'm not necessarily embracing this". I'm in no doubt it is a personal distancing from any possibility of litigation in a business culture where people can be personally sued or ditched, for example for a poor performance on the radio. Everything about it screams what is wrong about 21st Century communication - and imported American ideas about ethics - to me.

Finally, if there is anything human about it at all, it is bizarre - "Being a business person, I am here to provide a technical answer but just because I am providing a technical answer I am not the teacher's pet or anything". It's that modern combination of teenage outlook and being so card sharp he/she might as well be 80 and running a ponzi scheme.

(The older person's "well" - is an intake of breath, a "you might think that but we think differently" - it is controlled emotion attached to logic rather than delivering a machine)

Incidentally, the phrase that I decided to use at public events when having to defend the indefensible on the part of my organisation was "well, what we would say is....." Because that conveyed to the public an understanding of their position, it went down well with them. At the same time, I was accepting partial responsibility, as paid, for what was being put forward by using the word "we". It didn't do me any favours. Bosses probably saw it as being lukewarm towards them while leaving me open to carrying the can for their idiocy. But it was human and reasonable given the circumstances. That satisfied me. There was a certainty with the vulnerability. "So" people are not at all vulnerable but very uncertain.

[Padraig]

That "so" thing drives me crackers.

It is probably the worst thing I have ever heard.

Lat, if I may, I would refer you to Heaney's translation of Beowulf. In his introduction he offers:

''Conventional renderings of hwaet (my wrong spelling), the first word of the poem, tend towards the archaic literary, with 'lo', 'hark', 'behold', 'attend' and - more colloquially - 'listen' being some of the solutions offered previously. But in Hiberno-English Scullion-speak, the particle 'so' came naturally to the rescue, because in that idiom 'so' operates as an expression that obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation, calling for immediate action. So, 'so' it was:

'So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.' ''

'Scullion-speak' is a reference to local dialect in Heaney country, but I have heard the same idiom in use in my locality; an informal calling to order word. For example, you are at a concert, milling about beforehand, greeting and chatting. 'So' has the function of allowing you to leave the conversation politely and attend to the business of finding your seat etc.

ah above referred to 'some Irish' ending sentences with 'so', in the manner of 'look you'. He may be thinking of how 'some Irish' add 'so it is', 'so I am', 'so he did', to, respectively, 'It's a fine day', 'I'm going to Belfast', 'He sang that song well'.

[Lat-Literal]

Lat, if I may, I would refer you to Heaney's translation of Beowulf. In his introduction he offers:

''Conventional renderings of hwaet (my wrong spelling), the first word of the poem, tend towards the archaic literary, with 'lo', 'hark', 'behold', 'attend' and - more colloquially - 'listen' being some of the solutions offered previously. But in Hiberno-English Scullion-speak, the particle 'so' came naturally to the rescue, because in that idiom 'so' operates as an expression that obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation, calling for immediate action. So, 'so' it was:

'So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.' ''

'Scullion-speak' is a reference to local dialect in Heaney country, but I have heard the same idiom in use in my locality; an informal calling to order word. For example, you are at a concert, milling about beforehand, greeting and chatting. 'So' has the function of allowing you to leave the conversation politely and attend to the business of finding your seat etc.

ah above referred to 'some Irish' ending sentences with 'so', in the manner of 'look you'. He may be thinking of how 'some Irish' add 'so it is', 'so I am', 'so he did', to, respectively, 'It's a fine day', 'I'm going to Belfast', 'He sang that song well'.

Well, Padraig, that gives us plenty to consider. I'm not quite sure, though, what to think.

"So" as "lo", "hark", "behold" - isn't that a "hear or observe this grand thing"? "Hark"......the herald angels sing etc. To place that in the modern context of interview, that almost implies grandiosity on the part of the scientist or the salesman with a pitch. "An expression that obliterates all previous discourse and narrative" - yes, I can believe that bit where it is a response to a difficult line of questioning - Q. "why didn't you provide refunds to those who went on holiday and found themselves next to a building site?" A. "So.....etc, etc".

I still feel it is a recent phenomenon with a different root, transatlantic, part-reason along the lines of legal defensiveness as previously outlined and, I suppose, part-habit like "cloud cuckoo land" and the "64 million dollar question". Maybe, though, I am beginning to doubt a little of what I have said. I am not in a good position to comment on the Irish "so" without sounding trite. "So it is" - Father Ted, I think, and also my dentist (one of the most pleasant people I know). Isn't that convivial in colloquial terms like "to be sure"? I would be interested to know what precedes "So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness" with unintended irony in that request.

[Padraig]

I would be interested to know what precedes "So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness" with unintended irony in that request.

I guess The Storyteller was calling his audience to order, using 'so' in the Heaney sense.

I'm sorry I am not aware of the senses you mention, though Heaney's 'so' is only one of several possible uses. So I'll keep an eye out for those uses that drive you crackers.

[Lat-Literal]

I guess The Storyteller was calling his audience to order, using 'so' in the Heaney sense.

I'm sorry I am not aware of the senses you mention, though Heaney's 'so' is only one of several possible uses. So I'll keep an eye out for those uses that drive you crackers.

Oh, I see what you mean now. That key word is "story". It is a "stop what you are all doing, gather round, and to some extent marvel" such as shepherds joining around a fire to be told about a star or scientists or artists being given a talk in the 19th Century at the Royal Academy. As such, it doesn't need any earlier sentences and nor do those words of Heaney. With scientists in mind, one point I hadn't mentioned is that the modern usage has a hint of the scientific "therefore" about it. The questioner asks "how is this?" and the one who replies hears it more as a scientific test - "if this is this?" - so(!) in a (scientific) formulaic sense replies with a "therefore, that is that", replacing "therefore" with "so".

But I do feel that these thoughts - yours and mine - give what is happening more substance than it deserves. I have heard people being asked a series of questions and at the start of every reply using the word "so". That is habitual more than it is anything else and as I have indicated I do think there is a specific set of modern motives behind that habit. Those motives may not be applicable on every occasion - they may be principally about the derivation of use rather than whoever is saying it at a specific time - but they often do apply because there is an identifiable contextual pattern to its usage. It isn't used by people buying hamburgers or attending a football match. Just to pick one name out of a hat, Andrea Leadsom who was originally a financier was observed by political critics (in The Spectator?") for its overuse. But it is everywhere among such folk and now filtering down.

(It has been said that pronouncing "h" as "haitch" - something also on the increase - is Irish but many well-informed Irish don't say it and many English people who know little do)

[Lat-Literal]

Ah, here is a view from the United States.

Where else?

It combines comment that it is not being used more than at earlier times - nonsense - and that it is being used more and emanated from computer types in Silicon Valley -

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732...ntence-with-so:

Scientists have been using that backstory "so" among themselves since the 1980s, but its recent spread is probably due to the tech boom. In his 2001 book The New New Thing, Michael Lewis noted that programmers always started their answers with "so." That's around the time when I first heard it, working at a Silicon Valley research center. Mark Zuckerberg answers questions with "so" all the time: "So, it comes down to the economics ..." "So one of the services that the government wanted to include ..." But by now that backstory "so" is endemic among members of the explaining classes — the analysts, scientists and policy wonks who populate the Rolodexes of CNBC and The PBS NewsHour.

I like NPR but I don't think they have grasped it. Several examples they cite are attached to questions and from my experience it is almost always used in reply to questions unless there's conversation in full flow. Additionally, they have quoted different kinds of usage and not all of them are historically unconventional. For example, ""so, it comes down to the economics ..." is fine because "so" there is the very long term linkage to a rational conclusion rather than the starting point to a technical explanation or a business defence.

There are, I think, two areas where it is very annoying.

1. The interviewer - let's call him Humphrys - says "a lot of people listening will not understand the Article 50 process - can you enlighten them?" and the EU representative begins some sort of explanation with the word "So", ie "So Article 50 is a process whereby.......etc etc". That is ridiculous. You can almost here the word "m'lord" in it from "the accused". "So, m'lord, Article 50 is a process whereby......etc etc.....it was nothing to do with me or him guv". 2. The one that I mentioned earlier - You and Yours etc - "People went with your company to Spain and were promised a great holiday. They were kept awake because there was a building site next to their room. Will you provide a refund?". Company representative - "So our policy is not to provide refunds but to offer another holiday and that is what we will be doing for Mr and Mrs Smith". Again, it's ridiculous. I find it sinister.