The Grammar Guru Take 2

It’s time for another of Professor Dye’s lectures on the misuse of the English Language. Fortunately for fans, friends, and followers of these occasional screeds, there will be no exams. There will, however, be a large dose of scowling, finger waving, and rude interruptions for those who do not pay attention.

So, what brings me to this newest level of frustration is that word at the beginning of this sentence. Why is it—and this is not a rhetorical question—that virtually every comment, response, or conversational foray seemingly must begin with “so?” I’ll pause smugly here while you review your own speech patterns. Likely you’ve discovered yourself consistently leaning on this verbal crutch as a milquetoast way of saying what you think without giving offense or in an effort to appear wise and thoughtful prior to saying anything at all.

Au contraire, (that’s French for how wrong can you possibly be?) using the word so to preface each and every sentence in oral conversation merely marks you as boring at best and a truly crappy storyteller at worst. Those glazed facial expressions or dramatic eyerolls among your listeners will indicate which. At the risk of being a stodgy old grammar nerd, let me recount a conversation I recently had with a young woman who was trying to surmount the tragic end of a romantic relationship.

Prof. Dye: How are you?

Ms. Tragedy: So, it’s really brutal, y’know. I’m like so pissed at him.

Prof. Dye politely disregards her supposition that I should know who he is and responds: Why is that?

Ms. Tragedy: So, we’re out dancing, y’know? And he’s all like slobbering over his ex. So, she’s over in a corner giving him side-eye. So, he goes over there like a big wimp, y’know? So, I tell her to back off, right? So, she goes…

Professor Dye can’t recall the rest. It was too boring and painful for him to struggle with the tidbits of information that followed five so’s in the six sentences that opened her story. He ordered a large beaker of bourbon and moved away to ponder in silence. No chance of his contemplation being disrupted by any adjacent conversations. Everyone was glued to an iPhone screen. The only words picked up by the Professor’s diminished hearing were versions of cool or awesome.

There was time and inclination to review other conversational crutches the Professor had learned to steer clear of during his service in uniform. He contemplated the openers or attention getters used in thousands of military orations ranging from a corporal cobbling together a working party to brass-bound bureaucrats in full-blown briefer mode. There was always that initial spoken preface. “Awright, you guys…” Or “Listen up, people…” It was the rare bird indeed who simply presumed audience attention and said what he wanted to convey without hokey preamble. If you haven’t had that experience personally, just check any war movie ever made. Any officer or NCO depicted will consistently open his dialogue with a version of “all right,” usually growled as awright if he’s a grizzled sergeant. Even our supposedly well-spoken British cousins get in on that act snapping off a crisp Right! before orders are issued.

It all puts me in mind of some sage advice I got from a long-serving captain when I was learning Technique of Military Instruction. “Never open a lesson with All Right or Alright,” he said. “You don’t need to ask if it’s all right. That’s giving away the power of what you have to say. Of course, it’s all right because you are the one in charge. Just get on with it.” It took time for me to swallow and digest that after years of hearing hokey prefixes that were so common that they worked opposite to what was intended. When military audiences hear “Awright, you guys,” they know nothing of interest is likely to follow and zone right out.

Professor Dye begs your indulgence for ending that previous sentence with a proposition and asks that you once again review your own speech patterns. Ask yourself if “where’s it at?” is the way you inquire concerning the whereabouts of something. “Where is it?” works better and gets you extra credit in this course. Class dismissed.

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