

Improper grammar, starting a sentence with so or this - jebblue

So I wanted to harp briefly on how irritating it is for a lot of us to read sentences that start with so.<p>This. What, was that a sentence?
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ChuckMcM
I'm tempted to say "because language". But I won't. The language is evolving
and in the written electronic modality it is becoming increasingly common to
start a sentence with 'So' or 'This.' which infer an inclusion or endorsement
of the previous writing and then add upon it.

It can bug you but you can't keep people from changing the rules by using the
language in a way they like. That has been happening since the first campfire.

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dctoedt
> _you can 't keep people from changing the rules by using the language in a
> way they like._

True enough; I still go into shaddup-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn mode, though,
when I see _impact_ used as a verb or _their_ as a singular pronoun.

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dragonwriter
> So I wanted to harp briefly on how irritating it is for a lot of us to read
> sentences that start with so.

So, I wanted to harp briefly on how irritating it is for a lot of us to read
sentences where people neglect to use commas and quotation marks where
appropriate.

> This. What, was that a sentence?

"This," as a standalone sentence, offered in response to other content is an
idiom, used particularly online, wherein the speaker expresses endorsement of
the content the sentence is offered in response to, essentially, "this" stands
in for the entire body of the referenced content and adopts it as the position
of the speaker using "this" as well as that of the original source of the
content.

Its not a sentence composed of words in their general meaning, its a special
one-word idiomatic construct with a specialized meaning in a particular
context.

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lovelearning
_how irritating it is for a lot of us_

You mean you did some kind of a survey to reach this conclusion?

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akg_67
When you start to complain about things because you are set in your ways and
start to expect things to always happen the way they used to, like my wife
tells me, your are getting old!!

This is all part of evolution, accept it and worry about things that are more
important to you. I may find SMS lingo annoying but that is the way
communication and language is evolving so be it. For a change, I like how
people have started to accept that you understand the context of conversation
and don't have to worry about someone interjecting questions like "Who are
they?" in conversations.

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vezzy-fnord
What about "now", "well", "you know", "then", "I mean" and "basically"?

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mikehawkins
I'm a bit guilty of this myself - I tend to use this in emails, when trying to
give the feel of an informal conversation.

So... I'm curious what you think about this case? ;)

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thomasrossi
I do this all the time:(

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Rifu
So... what exactly are you trying to say here

