Let's lose the So...-ing!

Did you catch the 8.10 sequence on Today this morning? The dysfunctional state of HMP Birmingham was the focus and the Prison's minister, Rory Stewart MP, was on the line from Edinburgh. What caught my ear was not the calm and candid answers but how frequently Mr Stewart's answers began with "So... ". So much so, I went back and counted them. Of twelve questions or points put to him, seven started with "So...".

So, "So..." has become the new thinking word of our time. Where "umm.." or "errr..." might have bought an interviewee time to draft and deliver a response to a question, they have given way to the more sibilant "So...". But we wouldn't want to start every answer with "Err....", would we?

Mr Stewart is not the only public speaker guilty of such dilly-dallying, but his interview was notable in that he followed Roger Swindells, Chair of HMP Birmingham's Independent Monitoring Board. Mr Swindells faced eight questions and started each answer right on the beat with a punchy first sentence. For instance: "We had great concerns.... " or "You could say.. " or "That would be correct...". Exemplary stuff.

Is this a generational thing? Like the overuse of "like" in everyday conversation and - worse - in, like, broadcast interviews? If so, apologies for being an old git about this. And who knows, in asking broadcast questions, I may have been guilty of uttering the odd "So..." when quizzing various so and so's on air.

So, let's do a deal. Correction: Let's do a deal and all of us cut out the sentence-starting "So..." shall we? And leave the So-ing to the So-und of Music and the tonic so-lfa!