So, is there a new use of so?

[Alan Baragona]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: So, is there a new use of so?


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> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: So, is there a new use of so?
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>
> On Jan 2, 2006, at 2:36 PM, Jason Norris wrote:
>
>> Lately, I've been noticing an interesting use of the word "so," and
>> was wondering where it might come from? I've heard it more from
>> students and only within the last few years.
>>
>>   Example: A woman walks in and says, "So I was trying find a
>> parking spot yesterday when it started raining..."
>>
>>   ... The second use I've heard is from comedians. "So these three
>> public radio hosts were talking about the weather one day..." (Or
>> something funny).
>
> i use it all the time myself, and i believe i've used it for decades.
>
> in the examples above it announces that some new discourse chunk is
> beginning; in both examples that chunk is a narrative (personal
> narrative in the first case, joke in the second).  it's also a kind
> of attention-getting device.
>
> some people use it at the very beginning of a talk, where it says
> "i'm starting now".  jim mccawley used to use it this way, and he
> also used "ok" with the same function.  those uses were unfamiliar
> enough to me that they caught my attention.  but starting stories
> with "so" is entirely natural for me.
>
> back in july, i spent a fair amount of time looking though short
> stories and novels for ones beginning with a coordinator ("and",
> "but", or "so", in particular).  (this task was suggested by geoff
> pullum, who was asking for a colleague.)  no luck.  even the very
> experimental writers, and those famous for beginning in medias res,
> pretty much use conventional beginnings: "the", "I", proper names,
> "in", etc.
>
> i didn't look at *all* the fiction in my collection, but i looked at
> a lot of it.
>
> if you're going to try this at home, kids, be warned that it's
> incredibly tempting to read on past that first word, especially for
> favorite fiction you haven't gone back to in some time.  (i found
> Grace Paley especially seductive this way.)
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

The best recent literary example I can think of, which also corresponds to
Jason's woman's usage, is Seamus Heaney, whose translation of Beowulf
translates the opening word, Hwaet, as "So!"  Definitely, an "I'm starting
now" function.