Grammar that makes you cringe

[Mr Larrington]

Getting really irritated by people being interviewed on TV and radio starting every answer with "So". Where the hell has this come from?

I am mortified to confess that Dr Larrington was guilty of this on her wireless series back in September.  I shall Have Words.

[ian]

I am guilty of starting with, "So," because it is one way of saying, "Pay attention." So often I would say something and the response would be, "Pardon," and I'd have to repeat myself. Using a quick short attention getter: a cough, so, ey-up, or something means people listen first time.

Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

[billplumtree]

I am guilty of starting with, "So," because it is one way of saying, "Pay attention."

Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Well, yeah, but what was wrong with "Well", which served that porpoise perfectly, er, well?

[Nuncio]

Look, it's at least the 4th time 'So-at-the-beginning-of-a-sentence' has come up in this thread. It only jars with me (now) when it's the start of an answer to a direct question. It just sounds rude and/or evasive.  cf 'Look' at the beginning of a sentence.

[citoyen]

Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Whether or not this is true, it doesn't explain where it has come from - or why. I don't recall it being so prevalent five years ago.

Language fashions are strange indeed.

[Legs]

Language fashions are, like, strange, like.

FTFY

[mattc]

I am guilty of starting with, "So," because it is one way of saying, "Pay attention." So often I would say something and the response would be, "Pardon," and I'd have to repeat myself. Using a quick short attention getter: a cough, so, ey-up, or something means people listen first time.

My ex B-in-law used to use "I say!" in that way. It seemed to work.

It was rather odd - it didn't fit the rest of his vocab/mannerisms at all.

[citoyen]

Language fashions are, like, strange, like.

FTFY

 

[Mr Larrington]

The "So" thing probably works if you're making like a sneersome Paxman interviewing a particularly odious politician:  "So, Mr Green Shapps, are you seriously suggesting that jam can come in big pots?" with the unspoken subtext that anyone thinking such a thing must be a really special kind of idiot.

[Jakob W]

ISTR Beowulf starts with a 'So.' (Or at least that's how Seamus Heaney rendered 'hwaet'.)

So it's been in and out of fashion for quite some time...

[red marley]

I find if I begin with "Hark!" while pointing my finger in the air, the ensuing silence gives me some thinking time. If I need a bit more, "Hark! I hear horses." works well.

[rogerzilla]

Sainsbury's has a big sign above one aisle reading

MEN'S CLOTHING
KID'S CLOTHING

I know the latter isn't wrong in isolation but it's not what they meant, and it really jars next to MEN'S.

Still, neither is as awful as AMBIENT CAKE, which is the most cack-handed way to describe a  normal cake that I can imagine.

[rogerzilla]

Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Whether or not this is true, it doesn't explain where it has come from - or why. I don't recall it being so prevalent five years ago.

Language fashions are strange indeed.

At our place it started with the onetime head of IT Architecture and spread like widfire.  It is indeed a way of barging into a conversation and it works because it implies that what is about to be said somehow logically follows from what has been said before.  In fact, they were probably not listening at all, just waiting for a chance to speak.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Ambient cake?  It suggests, to me, cake which is somehow generally pervasive making its presence felt.
So, you see, there's this cake, and it's like everywhere but, thing is, well, I mean it's like everywhere but you don't basically know where it is. So that's the basic thing about, well, about, like, ambient cake. It's ambient like. Safe!

[ian]

Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Whether or not this is true, it doesn't explain where it has come from - or why. I don't recall it being so prevalent five years ago.

Language fashions are strange indeed.

I think people got bored of 'well' and 'look'. I always begin in silence, merely waving my large calibre handgun until I have the audience's full and undivided attention.

That, btw, isn't a euphemism.

[citoyen]

Ambient cake... truly awful management jargon.

[hellymedic]

Ambient cake... truly awful management jargon.

But I suppose the shelfdroids have to differentiate ambient cake from cake which must be refrigerated.

[SteveC]

...or frozen

[SteveC]

MrsC has worked in the food industry.
They categorise foods into 'ambient', 'chilled' and 'frozen'.
Different procedures needed when handling and storing.
It makes sense but is another example of specific trade jargon escaping into the outside world where in sounds pretentious or silly.

[hellymedic]

...or kept frozen

FTFY...

[SteveC]

...or kept frozen

FTFY...

Touché

[citoyen]

It makes sense but is another example of specific trade jargon escaping into the outside world where in sounds pretentious or silly.

Exactly. It shouldn't be used in a 'customer facing' context.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I would never have known that was what it meant. I guessed it was something along the lines of "not categorisable under any specific category"; cake which isn't for a particular season or event. I don't think I've ever seen or heard the phrase before, but next time I visit Mr Painsbusy's Emporium of Toothy Combustibles, I shall keep a look out for it.

[Ian H]

It makes sense but is another example of specific trade jargon escaping into the outside world where in sounds pretentious or silly.

Exactly. It shouldn't be used in a 'customer facing' context.

!

[hellymedic]

Sainsbury's pack their toothy comestibles into separate bags for ambient, produce, chilled and frozen.
I think they're supposed to pack narsty cleaning things separate from foods but that doesn't always seem to happen.