ok, so

ok, so the following was a guest column from today's daily princetonian......all about the word so

On language, Princeton-style: 'So'

Laura Berner
Princetonian Columnist

I was sitting in class, running on two hours of sleep and just about to be lulled into a Power Point-induced stupor, when I was shaken back to reality by two consecutive blurbs on the first lecture slide that began with the same word. This situation wouldn't normally seem strange — no simple repetition of "the" or "a" would evoke any response — but the repeated word was so out of place, so irrelevant, so extraneous: so.

For years now adults have been unable to understand the teenage wonder, the bliss, the simplistic genius of the word "like." The valley-girl word that made the '90s great, that replaced "said" and signaled hyperbole or understatement was a staple of our youths. Placed by many adults on the irreverence-o-meter at the same level as gum-smacking, it continues to ruin job interviews for many college graduates even to this day. However, the times appear to be changing: the upstart of a word "so" actually seems to be encroaching dangerously on the territory of the once ubiquitous "like."

"So" is already such a versatile word, as it can be used — in a Webster's-approved fashion, of course — as a synonym for "very," "consequently," "thus," "indeed," "likewise," "anyway" and even (though sarcastically) "apparently." Perhaps it is the versatility of the "so," the belief that it could probably be used to mean anything we want it to, that has led to its bastardization.

You're probably thinking that the casual use of "so" has been around forever. I've been saying "so, I was like," "oh he is sooooo nice," and "so, you want some soup with your salt" for like, ever, you chortle. Oddly enough, though, it's probably not the "likers" who are using the new annoyingly arbitrary and unnecessary "so." It's blurted out like a nervous tick by mostly — I've noticed — adults and students trying to sound formal (and by formal I clearly mean erudite). Given time to catch on, the "so" could conceivably be a formidable rebuttal to "like."

What is this new use of "so"? Let's take the example from the slides. The instructor who wrote them obviously tried to write them in a conversational style, and I commend him for doing so because it usually makes lectures lighter, easier and more interesting. With this style, though, his proclivity for using "so" when he speaks showed up in the slide, almost like written evidence of its strangeness. The very first slide began with "So" and the following paragraph started with "So," and neither "so" was preceded by some sort of statement that the paragraphs on the slide were meant to explain. The "so's" just came out of nowhere and for no reason. They didn't serve a "thus" or "therefore" purpose; in fact, they served no purpose. This, my friends, is the new "so" — basically extraneous and marginally annoying. But let's not pick on the teacher, since he is clearly not alone in the so-age, and this might just be a linguistic revolution I missed over Intersession.

In fact, even we college kids have caught on to the disease that I at first thought was restricted to the post-college world. Someone asked how a decision was made in a group I'm involved with on campus, and one of the officers replied, "So we took into account . . . ." Why is that "so" there? I couldn't tell you. Maybe "so" is replacing "well." Will interviewees someday reply "So that's an interesting question"?

So when I'd recount dialogues (annoying "so," no?) from my days at school — and let's be serious, this still happens today — my parents stopped me and begged me not to plop "like" after every other word. The "and I was like . . . and she was like" weren't just made-up grammar, but, my parents claimed, they were distracting and made it hard for adults to actually listen to what I was saying. I finally understand where they were coming from. Karma, it seems, has come to kick me in the tuchus for all the "likes." And so it goes.

Laura Berner is a sophomore from Rye, N.Y. She can be reached at lberner@princeton.edu.