so = 'absolutely; utterly; such'

[Jonathan Lighter]

It's noteworthy because it feels completely ungrammatical - certainly
before the indefinite article.

Maybe 'so very much' is a better definition.

JL

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 10:26 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: so = 'absolutely; utterly; such'
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 8:15 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>> The news-gatherers at CNN report that international cultural
>> super-icon Snooki has tweeted "I love my tattoos" and "Today is soooo
>> [sic] a cuddle day."
>>
>> The use of endemic current "so" (or, as usu. pronounced,
>> /sou::::::::::/ [more or less]) immediately before an article is new
>> to me.
>
> Well, what Arnold terms "GenX so" has been modifying predicate NPs for
> quite a while -- I'm not sure why the presence of an article modifying
> the NP would be especially noteworthy. The OED cites an example that
> Jesse uncovered from 1979, in the Woody Allen movie _Manhattan_: "Oh,
> please, you know. God, you're so the opposite!"
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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