h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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That used to be used in the Beano a bit too, even when I was a kid...

I remember a Roger the Dodger story where he pretended he'd got satellite TV by performing behind an empty CRT box and the 'foreign channel' was him in glasses and buck teeth going "aah-so! Aah-so!"
I have no idea why this stuck in my mind, but it did.

Sometimes it just seems right. (I mean the "so" thing - the post at the top of this page has been yikesed ) If this thread had been about any other subject, I wouldn't have even noticed the word "so" in the title. it doesn't really bother me as much as it did Hoo's interlocuter.

I have been surprised by the resurgence of "you know", though. I thought it went out when I was in my twenties, but it seems to be cropping up again all the more often.

What bugs me is the "obviously" that people continually throw into sentences. Firstly, they can't even pronounce it, and secondly, whatever they're saying isn't always obvious. Or it is so clear that the word "obviously" is totally superfluous.

In future, I will make an effort only to use "so" at the beginning of a sentence if I mean "Therefore". Even then, I shall have my English teacher mumbling somewhere in my head that "so" should never be used under any circumstances in proper English. I've forgotten his reasoning.

The "obviously" one seems to be particularly beloved of footballers, for reasons I don't quite grasp.

I'll put my hand up to being annoyed by this. I see it happening in a great many online conversations and in thread titles, and I've formed the opinion that in some instances people aren't comfortable with starting a post with the the first person pronoun, so they insert 'so' to, er, soften the blow.

However, before I noticed it appearing at the beginning of sentences I heard it being used at the end, like an ellipsis, as if people didn't want to finish what they were saying. My former boss used to do it a lot when speaking to customers, and in the context I hear it used most often: "We can't refund your money on that CD because the wrapping's been taken off, so..." or "We can't take out-of-state IDs for anyone selling CDs, so...".

I pressed 'post' instead of 'preview'

What's happening there is that he doesn't want to say something uncomfortable or negative.

*giggles*

You can't beat a bit of Gosho and his flying fingers!




lil

I like "so". By changing the inflection when it's spoken it can indicate different things. Frinstance, a quick, sharp "SO!" can indicate an accusatory tone. A long drawn out, "Soooo" can indicate a delicate subject.

However, the best use of the word is as the perfect retort, according to Mrs. Darling, my high school English teacher.

I can't remember exactly what instigated this little lecture of Mrs. Darling's, but it was in response to one of the girls in the class. I think it was during some little argument between students, or possibly Mrs. Darling was correcting a point or some a bit of grammar as the student was reading an essay. Whatever the case, the girl used "So!" as a response to some point or accusation and Mrs. Darling got a beaming smile on her face and wrote the word "So" on the chalkboard and explained that it was, indeed, the perfect retort. Briefly, she pointed out that when used as a retort, there is no comeback to it. It accepts the argument and dismisses it all in one syllable. Brilliant!

She was obviously being a bit facetious and wasn't recommending it for use in a proper debate, but she does have a point.

So is a singular cry for help.

I think you'll find it's a needle pulling thread...

pfft. If it hadn't been me it would have been someone else.

Na also...you people find more things to worry about, I swan...

I was thinking about this and realised where I think I picked it up as a "linguistic tic" and it was Private Eye. The poems of EJ Thribb (17 1/2) begin with "So, farewell then..."

according to Wiki they began in 1972.

It might well be Irish. Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prizewinning poet, began his translation of Beowulf with "so".

'So' is a nice translation of 'hwaet'. Which is how 'Beowulf' begins.

Maybe this literary "tic" has been around for more than 1,000 years, then. I guess we can't speculate on who was to blame for starting it.

Hmmm, not reallllly...it's a bit of a stretch...there are any number of other words that could stand in for "hwaet", there. Seamus Heaney's concern was making a decent poem in modern English, not a literal translation.

Sure, most people used to translate it as 'Lo!'

'Lo!' is not an expression I've heard on the street recently.

COme to think of it, an idiomatic translation in Philadelphia might being...wait for it...'Yo!'

As in:

Yo! Ya heard about the Spear-Danes?
Man, were they cool, or what?
Their kings were just the toughest, man,
The Anglo-Saxons got.
When they went into battle,
They laid 'em, left and right,
The heaviest dude, Scyld Sceafing,
Could take Chuck Norris in a fight.'