A couple years ago every airhead with a podcast started beginning every freaking sentence with the word “So“. And then, just when I couldn't hurl my airpods at the wall fast enough, a select few decided that wasn't presumptuous enough and started beginning every sentence with “I meeean…“.
I’ve never been a podcast consumer (unless the podcasts were entirely of music with no speaking), so I missed this moment you’re describing.
Opening sentences with “So”, or “So…” has, for whatever reason, been a thing I’ve done since I was a child. Somewhere, buried on analogue cassettes, are bits of my childhood voice on them doing just that back during the early and mid 1980s. (Back then, I also used “actually” and “basically”, dangling always at the very end of sentences, far more than anyone ought to — both being things I had to remove consciously from my lexicon of usage.)
But also, I’ve lived in places where “So…” opens a clause as a regionalism.
Case in point: in Minnesota, a casual question is, somewhat uniquely, bookended with “So” and “then”, to the point where it’s an established trope of, if not just Minnesotans, then also for upper Midwesterners from Fargo to the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. It may or may not be a carryover from Scandinavian languages which founded the colonized farmlands and, later, the iron ore mines.
Example: “So are you going to the Byerly’s on France, then?” Response: “Oh yah, I gotta pick up a gallon of melk and also some leaf begs at Menards.” (Note: those two typos embody how those words are pronounced there.) “So I’m going to the store,” as a declarative, is also heard frequently within this region.
So this
is actually a thing, in of itself — whether regional, as interrogative bookends, or in opening a statement with “So…”
For some of us, it’s
always been a thing.
If that’s what you mean, why didn't you say it the first time? This is the first time? Then why wouldnt I expect you to already be saying what you mean? Are you just really bad at communicating? Then why do you have a podcast?
I tend to parse someone saying, “I mean…” as another way of saying, “To put this another way…” or “From this different vantage,” but with an economizing reduction of up to five syllables.
…but a hearty English breakfast when served with mash.
Nah. Bangers and mash are total pub grub after one’s enjoyed a couple of pints and wants to stick around a bit with your friend as you order a third.
