My husband’s temper noticeably improved when we had that BBC strike, when there were fewer irritants from nettle-beds such as Today.
My husband’s temper noticeably improved when we had that BBC strike, when there were fewer irritants from nettle-beds such as Today. But he’s over it now, and cursing the smallest, most niggling annoyance yet broadcast: the word so.
Instead of well, it is used as a mere preliminary utterance to interviewees, with perhaps a hint of challenge. This is what my husband finds more and more annoying as the cumulative count increases. ‘So and so,’ he shouts at the wireless, still surprised at the ineffectiveness of his intervention.
It is not as though so is new as a conjunction. The Oxford English Dictionary expends 30,000 words discussing this little word, in all its nuances, from Caedmon’s Hymn in the year 700 to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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