At the end of the day, we can’t do without verbal padding

I had last week the pleasure of lunch with Mark Mason. Between or perhaps while walking (overground) the route of the London Underground for his latest book, Walking the Lines, he has been writing occasionally for The Spectator. I had wanted to discuss with Mark his piece (‘It’s so annoying,’ 5 November) about the viral spread of the word ‘so’ as a pointless means of starting a sentence or conversation. Dot Wordsworth, too, has been confounded by the fashion, and I reported the phenomenon many months ago in the Times; though on this magazine’s letters page a weary reader has reviewed the great debate and concluded ‘So what?’

So – well, what? Our lunch led me to a whole new speculation about language. If I’m right then I’ve wasted most of my life in a permanent Vesuvian eruption of indignation about meaningless words and phrases. I’ve missed the point. They’re supposed to be meaningless.