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No-one should ever feel shame at having uttered I guess, nor should try to induce that shame in others!
...What man that hath freendes thurgh fortune,
Mishap wol make hem enemys, I gesse;
This prouerbe is ful sooth and ful commune...
...With hym ther was his sone, a yong Squiér,
A lovyere and a lusty bacheler,
With lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse...
No-one should ever feel shame at having uttered I guess, nor should try to induce that shame in others!
...What man that hath freendes thurgh fortune,
Mishap wol make hem enemys, I gesse;
This prouerbe is ful sooth and ful commune...
...With hym ther was his sone, a yong Squiér,
A lovyere and a lusty bacheler,
With lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse...
(Both Chaucer, of course.)
We'll forgive his spelling, jean; I know he can do better! But he, and you, make the point.
So. The particle so 'operates as an expression that obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention.'
Heaney, in the Introduction to his translation of Beowulf, pages xxvi - xxviii, but preferably all of 2 About This Translation. or better still the whole Introduction, followed by a reading of the poem.
Beowulf A new Translation. Seamus Heaney. faber and faber 1999
Well unless one is actually in the act of conjecturing, to say "I guess" is just as meaningless as any other conjunction.
Except that it isn't a conjunction - any more than, say, the comparable I think, I suppose, I imagine, or any other of the slightly self-deprecatory locutions that oil the wheels of discourse.
...What man that hath freendes thurgh fortune,
Mishap wol make hem enemys, I gesse;
This prouerbe is ful sooth and ful commune...
...With hym ther was his sone, a yong Squiér,
A lovyere and a lusty bacheler,
With lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse.
Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse...
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