So What?

So much to do, so little time. I only wrote that sentence so that I could write this sentence. So, I was bored and decided to write this.

These three sentences include two valid uses of the word ‘so’ and one which is spurious. In the first example it is an adverb – it modifies another word. In the second it is a conjunction – it joins two things.

In the third it is just an annoying way of starting a sentence which could have been omitted without changing the meaning of what was being said and is becoming increasingly common. 

Listen to people interviewed on the radio and you will hear it.

Interviewer: How are you?

Interviewee: So, I’m very well.

It is starting to spread to sales people.

Customer: Have you got one of these in red?

Sales person: So, let me go and have a look.

I only mention it in an attempt to stop this linguistic twitch from spreading into the home.

I do not expect to be successful.