"Now, [was] 'So, about this message...'"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/26/2006 10:04 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
>...
>Only in the last year or two have I begun noticing on TV that nearly
>every response to a question from an interviewer or anchorman
>begins, "Well, . . ."  Has that always been happening?  Now, when an
>answer DOESN'T begin with "well," it sounds abrupt, curt, blunt, or
>unthoughtful.

In the last two or three years I have begun noticing on TV that
nearly every news reporter begins one or more sentences with "Now,
..."  (My recollection is that I first noticed it in one local news
reporter, in Boston.  Then it spread, like the throat distemper, to
the other reporters and the other local stations,; it has recently
appeared on network news broadcasts, uttered by non-local
reporters.)  Now, when a sentence DOES begins with "now", it sounds
unthoughtful.

Joel

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