Hey, talking heads: Please stop saying this when you start a sentence

When I was young, my father used to get on my case about using verbal placeholders. He didn’t like it when I resorted to “um” or “uh” when I was trying to decide what to say next, but his real pet peeve was my habit of concluding sentences with “y’know.”

“No, I didn’t know. If I already knew, that would mean I could read your mind. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to you.”

He never actually said that (he was too nice to have done so), but I know now that’s what he meant. He thought verbal placeholders were lazy, and wasted breath.

He was right.

I know, because the same thing bothers me today. I became so annoyed at hearing the same clichés and buzzwords over and over again, that I wrote a book about it called Please Stop Saying That!

Since the book came out, a few more clichés have entered the mainstream — and become embedded there like the shell of a popcorn kernel that digs in underneath your gums and refuses to be dislodged by Waterpik, toothpick or fingernail.

Perhaps the most ubiquitous of these is a single two-letter word that seems to be used by half the people interviewed on cable news channels. It’s the “y’know” of 2020, except it’s worse because you can’t avoid it by tuning the speaker out halfway through that first sentence: It’s the first thing out of their mouths.

So...,

The word means “therefore” or “as a result,” but it’s not used like that. It’s used as a verbal placeholder, a false segue from the interviewer’s question.

I’m not averse to using a conjunction to start a sentence when I’m writing. Done sparingly, it can help the flow of a narrative. But verbal speech is something different, especially when you’re changing from one speaker to another.

Here’s an example of a fictional exchange between a news anchor and an interviewee that illustrates my point:

Anchor: “What message do you think the candidate is trying to send?”

Interviewee: “So, the candidate has long been an advocate for...”

The word “so” makes no sense in this context. It’s supposed to mean, “therefore,” but if you substitute that word for “so” in the sentence, it sounds nonsensical: “Therefore, the candidate has long been an advocate for…” Therefore? Wherefore? Wherefore art though, common sense?

It’s no better if you substitute another conjunction. Try saying the same sentence with “but” or “and” at the beginning instead. It’s ludicrous. It doesn’t make any better sense to imagine that the speaker is starting the sentence with a command to “sew!”

Sew what?

“So” is also the title of an album released by former Genesis singer Peter Gabrial in 1986. It was his bestselling album and contained his only No. 1 single, “Sledgehammer.”

Whenever I hear the word “so” on CNN, I feel like I’m being hit by a sledgehammer.

There are a few instances in which “so” might be used, legitimately, to answer a question. Here’s an example:

Question: “Why are you doing that?”

Answer: “So I can succeed.”

Even then, though, a better answer would be: “Because it will help me succeed.”

Despite all this, “so” has somehow become acceptable — not because it’s any less absurd, but because we’ve heard it so often, it sounds like it belongs there.

It doesn’t, though.

Y’know?

Photo: The cover of Peter Gabriel’s 1986 album, “So.” He doesn’t look much like that anymore, though.