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

Thu Oct 26 21:52:50 UTC 2006

On Oct 26, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> 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.

a couple of old references in my previous posting.

my "conversational" writing style (as on the Language Log) includes
sentence-initial "now", and "well" as well.  i've been writing like
this for many decades.

arnold

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