IT'S DARK AND STORMY UP HERE TODAY SO ....

I'm not going to mention the rugby... well, I am of course as it was a very tough game and with one point separating the teams at the end it was a nail-biter.

This goes well with the nail-biter last night of the Black Caps being beaten by Australia on the last ball of the innings in the Cricket World Cup. What a game that was as well. At least the Aussies (this time) didn't resort to underarm bowling when the last ball of the match needed to be hit for six

New Zealand sports followers can be proud  of the way our teams played in both matches. Sure we lost but no one can doubt that this was thrilling to watch and that's the joy of  international sports.

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Anyway, back to what I want to say - or should I say "So, back to what I want to say"?

"So" and "literally" have overtaken that other very annoying word "like" that slipped into the popular vocabulary over the last few years. I'm sick of it.

Let's look at 'literally', literally.

The misuse of this word isn't new as there are many examples in literature of it being munted either deliberately or in ignorance.

• F. Scott Fitzgerald said of a character “He literally glowed”. 
• James Joyce wrote “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet".
• W. M. Thackeray wrote “I literally blazed with wit” .
• Charlotte Brontë wrote “she took me to herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained spirits”.
• Even Charles Dickens got himself a bit confused when he wrote "Lift him out," said Squeers, after he had literally feasted his eyes, in silence, upon the culprit".

Now regular readers will know that I am fairly well read (hey, I've almost read James Joyce's Ulysses and started Proust's  À la recherche du temps perdu)  but the above references come from Merriam-Webster on an internet search.

The recent misuse of the word won't be a surprise to you with idiots the world over saying and writing things like:

• I literally died laughing when ...
• My head literally exploded ...
• I'm so full I'm literally going to explode.
• He literally makes my blood boil, etc.

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'So' as a sentence starter has crept in recently to the point where it is so annoying.

I trawled the internet to find if others are annoyed by misuse or overuse of the conjunction and was (so) surprised to find that there is a 50:50 split amongst grammarians (although pedantic old ex-schoolteachers weren't consulted) as to whether it is correct usage or not.

It is suggested that so is often used to begin a sentence because it helps the speaker to avoid giving a straight answer. and has become a crutch word which enables the speaker to pause which can be very useful when they are formulating a lie - kind of like the 'tell' that Donald Trump uses when lying when he spreads his hands in front of him.

Here's a mash-up of what I read:*:

 The word so has been in English for a very long time. It is alternately an adverb (it’s so hot), a conjunction (eat your dinner so you can have dessert), an adjective (Jim is dead, isn’t that so?) and an introductory particle (So, I heard gun shots last night).

For many, the ubiquity of so just to introduce a topic or idea in modern parlance (So, what are we doing?) is troubling and often thought to be a recent addition to the language; however, English speakers have actually been using so to open a sentence since at least the Middle Ages.

Chaucer used so as an introductory particle in his poem Troilus and Criseyde:

"So graunte hem sone out of this world to pace (So, grant him soon out of this world to pass".

Shakespeare  also introduced sentences with a so. In the poem, The Rape of Lucrece, he wrote:

So guiltless she securely gives good cheer;

So that in venturing ill we leave to be;

So from himself impiety hath wrought;

So thy surviving husband shall remain;

So shall these slaves be king, and though their slave; and

So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state’.

Samuel Richardson  also used so in this way in the novel, Pamela:

So, like a fool, I was ready to cry;

So, with our blessings, and assured prayers for you, more than ourselves, we remain;

So, dear father and mother, it is not disobedience.

Nonetheless, the so haters do have a point that it is used much more ubiquitously in recent years. As for why, that’s up for debate, with the commonly touted theory putting the blame on Silicon Valley lingo.

This was first noted by Michael Lewis in The New New Thing (1999)- “When a computer programmer answers a question, he often begins with the word ‘so’.” As to how this came about, it is thought that given the international composition of the typical Silicon Valley work site, where a large number did not speak English as their first language, it became the simple “catchall” word of transition. Over time and frequent usage, it eventually became like a tic and just part of the common speech pattern of those in that industry and then spreading beyond.

A far better starter than um or well, both of which convey uncertainty, so connotes authority, as well as something being thought through. In the same vein, when it is used to answer a question rather than raise a point, inserting a so buys time – either to formulate a response or ignore the question and return to another topic.

In addition, communications professor Galina Bolden of Rutgers University notes that beginning sentences with so, “communicates that the speaker is interested in or concerned about the recipient… It also invokes prior conversations between the speaker and the recipient, drawing on their relationship history.”

So, given its utility and specious appearance of authority, as well as sometimes helping to avoid awkward silence while you think, it is no wonder so has become so popular. Of course, as with all lingual conventions, it can be (and often is) overused. But as using so in this way has been with us since pretty much the beginning of the language and seemingly just keeps increasing in popularity, the so haters might just have to hunker down and endure while the present wave passes.

You get the idea.

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I mentioned the word 'like' that's been overused for decades now and is like that 'Valley girl' lingo that's been mocked mercilessly: 

The 'Barbie' derogative has now been replaced by a lot of other sand, for me, the most annoying is the word 'Karen' that started from a US video clip of an entitled white woman named Karen complaining about something and then the term 'Karen' has been given to any person (but usually an entitled white woman) who complains about anything. Fine I guess if it had stayed in America but this stupid and annoying term has made its way into our vocabulary (mostly used by stupid people) in the way that horrible American words and practices have done in recent decades. like Halloween . Don't start me on Halloween and its ridiculousness (I think I'll write a post on this next).

* Cutting and pasting brought to you by The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ