"So!" Radio 4 listeners say stop using it to begin a sentence

So. Another year. There, I’ve done it. But not as a conjunction, but a sentence in its own right.

And while it seems like nothing at all, it’s seriously wound up enough radio 4 listeners on the Feedback programme to make it onto the main news – extract below.

So what is all the fuss? If you read the scholars and The Guardian, below, using the word ‘so', to begin your sentence may be irritating in the least, grammatically incorrect, and at worst, an aberration of the English language itself. But it is ancient, dating back to classic literature.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/15/so-whats-the-problem-with-so-bbc-radio-4-john-humphrys

Fast Company claimed that its use dumbs down your subject and alienates your audience, despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemingly dropping it at every opportunity.

It’s funny to us at Mentor, partly because of the countless media training sessions with professionals who like to prefix their key statements and messaging with ‘so’.

We’ve discussed it at length and I have to admit, we try to discourage its use because it starts to sound rehearsed and formulaic.

While academics remind you of its use in Beowulf, our own evidence suggests rather common usage of “so” by university academics and health workers, specifically doctors, consultants and health service managers.

We’ve debated and discussed why this may be the case among those professionals, with university staff saying it may be a teaching device by lecturers to get students to pay attention at the start of a lecture…"So…!" everybody stop and listen.

While doctors tell us they may use the conjunction as a means to avoid saying, ‘erm, well, now then..’ It’s more decisive, definitive and perhaps offers a moment where a patient or NHS colleague tunes in to what the doctor is about to impart. I’ve heard NHS staff saying that it might fill a gap at the start of the sentence, but it does leave me thinking the doctor just said something before ‘so’ and I’ve missed something. Or it could be just a pensive, reflective thing.

So what do you think? Does it annoy you to hear a thoughtful, considered opener like, ‘so’? Do we continue to coach it out of delegates vernacular, or let it lie?

One man who acquired worldwide recognition and made millions of pounds from the word, doesn’t pepper it in interviews, and while being more entitled to use it than most, it didn’t do Peter Gabriel any harm, on worldwide sales of 12 million records for his wonderful 1986 album, ‘SO!’