Friday 16 May 2014

So


So, just a link today to my article in The Telegraph on the use of the useless "so".

3 comments:

  1. Another word that is actually useless, and doesn't even sound very nice: got.

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  2. Two things come to mind: my Anglo-Saxon prof telling us "Seamus Heaney translated 'hwæt,' which means..."hwæt"...as 'so,' and he got beat up for that;" and John McWhorter's discussion of the "meaningless do" in Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.

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  3. Good article in The Telegraph. A marker, yes, but perhaps not entirely useless. It often indicates 'something is coming/has been said of import' ('So - we shall have to see what happens...') or as a preliminary to ending a conversation. 'So - great to see you, must be off now.'

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