"so" as predicate modifier

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 7/23/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> At 11:19 AM -0500 7/23/07, Greg Pulliam wrote:
> >Please tell me if this has come up before, and if anyone can
> >remember, about when that was.  I've searched the archives, but
> >haven't been able to find a thread--it's very likely to be my own
> >lousy searching techniques impeding me.
> >
> >I'm interested in the use of _so_ one hears in statements like:
> >
> >I am so not going to class today.
> >He is so over her.
> >We are so going to get in the water today.
> >
> >Has this usage been looking into as perhaps confirming VP-bar structure?
> >What are the edgiest usages of this that have been heard?
> >What other thoughts do members have about it.
> >
> Besides looking at the extensive discussion by Arnold Zwicky et al.
> in the ads-l archives of "Gen-X _so_" under that or other names,
> there's now a nice draft entry for _so_ "as an intensifier, forming
> non-standard grammatical constructions", with several cites, in the
> OED, from March 2006.

See also the entry for "so" in Michael Adams' _Slayer Slang_ (p. 240)
with many more citations.


--Ben Zimmer

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org