While Bolden said “so” appears less frequently before answers, the journalist Michael Lewis noticed its prevalence when exploring Silicon Valley for his 2001 book " The New Thing ," The New York Times reported. He claims programmers, especially of the Microsoft variety, started, or at least popularized, beginning answers with “so.” Maybe that’s where Zuck learned it.
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Next you’ll tell me Healthcare is Hard or something.
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So?
Needle and thread.
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“So.” as if it were a complete sentence, is context-sensitive code between me and my spouse. Usually it means “let’s go out to eat”, but it can mean “did you notice the plot hole too?” or “can you do me a favor?”
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Well, I, er…
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One thing I do at times when speaking with people is getting them to follow through some extremely specific phrasings, and then ruin the effect by finishing with a very deliberate and crisply delivered “…and stuff.”
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Yes.
I watched two lengthy (20 mins <) presentations on YouTube: one by a Python developer for Spotify on how to spy like the NSA; the other by a doctor on hyperinsulinemia.
The Python developer ummed, aahed, and uptalk?ed even though she knew her stuff? But it sounded like a plea for buy-in? I learned and retained much of her presentation though because her content was accessible to me? But If all the umms and aahs were edited out? Six minutes of the presentation would be cut?
The doctor admitted later his presentation wasn’t great: very rushed, lots of slides, medical terms given as known and undefined (it was at a convention of peers, but not a formal medical conference – he wore a stretchy 3/4 sleeve top and the presentation style was informal). But everything was spelled correctly, the doctor enunciated and did not aah or umm, but I don’t think I remembered as much from his talk even though it was the more recent of the two. But he sounded smart.
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Just by mentioning uptalking you made me read your post that way. Sorry, you’re an uptalker now.
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This is advice for seeming smart, not being smart. Maybe helpful for job interviews or something, though in general trying to seem smart is worrying about the wrong problem.
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I agree, this definitely happens. If only somebody would invent a solution!
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Um, ya know, aaaah…
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And when someone interrupts the person holding the stick, the interrupter can get whacked with it.
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When I was in junior high school, late sixties, my English teachers told us this. I’m quite confident that they didn’t think they were at the cutting edge. They also made the point that it is impolite to subject the person to whom you are speaking to a rambling, disorganized, mumble. My physics teacher at the time made the same point: you can’t claim to know something if you can’t articulate it; a poorly articulated argument will always give the impression of a lack of knowledge, competence, or preparation.
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To sound smart. Interesting.
Let’s see. President Obama’s umming and aahing was made fun of by the repubtards – yet he’s obviously one of the sharpest guys around – and Trump doesn’t noticeably umm and aah, but has the vocabulary of a parrot.
Maybe people should be smart about who is smart.
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I don’t think people who use lots of filler words sound dumb. I think they’re poor communicators, at least in that particular respect. Each filler word usage has to be filtered out by the listener, like hearing the melody through a shitty mic setup that records all the air hisses and pops. Fuck that noise.
Being less clear because you can’t be bothered to listen to how you sound and get rid of the meaningless crap isn’t the act of a stupid person, it’s the act of a rude and inconsiderate communicator. If they’re doing it to gain some spuriously perceived advantage because of some prejudice about my prejudices about how their speech patterns reflect intelligence, then they’re not only being inconsiderate communicators, they’re being prejudiced assholes. Assholes use conflict as the default model for conversation. When I notice myself participating in an antagonistic discussion, I check my agro and look for a way to restore the clairty and civility of the conversation. I sure as shit don’t think to myself: How can I confuse people by treating others like naïve marks?
Now if someone is being an inconsiderate communicator because it simply hasn’t occurred to them that that’s what they’re doing, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because not everyone is trained to speak clearly and I don’t want to miss something interesting someone might say just because they’re not the world’s clearest communicator. But if I have reason to believe they’re doing it deliberately, the nicest thing I will do is walk away from that damaged troll.
ETA [7 hr later]: Wow, I’m grouchy today. …retreats back into trash can…
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I actually use occasional fillers deliberately in my public speaking - my museum volunteer job involves giving several talks a day about various items on display. I feel like the filler noises make my talks sound less rehearsed and more spontaneous, especially during topic segues.
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Melody? Ack - it sounds terrible already!
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I just take the conch to say this. I can’t see no more and I got to get my glasses back.
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I do “um” and “err” a bit, which may or may not be cause for my friends to push me into traffic, but what is wrong with “so” in between sentences?
If you are using it to mean therefore, as in this happened, so that happened, is that wrong usage?
So there
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I ‘uh’ and ‘um’ a lot less now. For me, breaking that habit has been as much about better listening as better speaking. If you convey yourself as being a good listener, the other person will feel more assured that their train of thought won’t be interrupted and thus they’ll feel less pressured to fill every moment with placeholder speech.
I now just abide my own (and others’) conversational fermatas. I don’t know if it makes me appear smarter but I do know that it can make conversation feel less rushed and more intimate, assuming the other conversant isn’t an impatient dick.
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