I’ve listened to news commentators conduct interviews in a variety of ways. In the beginning of an interview with a news pundit, for example, the interviewer often begins with the tiny word, so. I am confused by this use of the short word. “So” can be an adverb, conjunction, pronoun, et al. “It is so hot today,” or “Is Gloria joining us today? I hope so.” Generally, the versatile word suggests a cause-and-effect relationship. It was raining this morning, so I brought my umbrella. In other words, “so” suggests something came before. So…why is it being used as a conversation starter?
I love words, SO, I care about the ways in which they are used. Before you conclude that I need to get a life (after all, who cares how people speak), bear with me. As a former college instructor in the Humanities, clarity of expression was important. It still is. I recall with some nostalgia, the sheer joy I felt when reading everything from essays to short stories by writers who displayed artistry and precision with language. A line from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises comes to mind. I read the book during my sophomore year in high school. The novel centers on the character of Jake Barnes while in Spain. Jake had become exhausted by attending bullfights and drinking too much. The narrator gives the reader insight into the man’s mind through a little inner dialogue with the comment, “It was good to drink the wine slowly and to taste it”. My fifteen-year-old sensibilities were awakened. That short sentence seemed to me to be the essence of the entire book. Hemingway knew how to use language; in fact, he used it simply. The novel did not begin with “so…”.
Charles Dickens was quite the wordsmith. Does this opening sentence sound familiar? It was the best of times; it was the worst of times (A Tale of Two Cities). Dickens proceeds to acquaint the reader with the violent days of the French Revolution and its overreach from Paris to London. The nineteenth century novelist, with his enormous casts of characters, addressed child labor laws, unjust treatment of the poor and the plight of the human condition generally. His prose was not peppered with “so”.
I don’t think people choose deliberately to butcher the king’s English, but I do think they confront language in limited ways: text code, Instagram remarks, and the like. There is little context for people of all ages beyond cryptic responses to opposing viewpoints as they spend hours on their screens. In this era of easy access to all manner of knowledge, general use of language should reflect that. Sadly, it does not.
I am hard pressed to draw a biblical application in this entry, which is a departure from the direction my prose generally takes. Perhaps it’s safe to say that words are meant to be used clearly, to articulate one’s inner thoughts in a manner that communicates to others. Surely Scripture speaks to that issue. I think the apostle Paul’s observation is apropos here: “So with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air.” (1 Corinthians 14:9).
