Sew, a needle pulling thread....

This is one musical number that is beginning to get right under my skin, so much so that I am thinking of becoming Angry of Tonbridge Wells.
Have people suddenly been trained to start every answer in a TV or radio interview with the word 'so' ? I just don't get it. It is a connective word which is supposed to join two clauses together. E.g. this morning on 'Breakfast':

"Are robots likely to make a great number of people unemployed in the future?"

"So, robots are being used in a number of roles .........."

What a weird, but increasingly persistent, way to answer a question. Don't tell me it's just the language evolving. Every prat on TV seems to be at it, yet I've not come across anyone in ordinary day-to-day conversation who does it. 

So agree with you!

 
Cheers - Phil

Are you implying that robots could do the same sort of films as Julie Andrews?

If robot know's the notes to sing, it can sing most anything.
Lah, tee, dah, so, fah so good, think I'll have some Christmas pud.

Oh 'eck! I'm off me perch!!!

Quote from: Leman on 16 September 2015, 08:01:36 PM
Oh 'eck! I'm off me perch!!!

Isnt that always the case ?

IanS

I find it an occasionally useful device the add emphasis and a certain menace to a question (if you do it right).

"So, who was that lady I saw you with last night?"

Quote from: Leman on 16 September 2015, 03:39:42 PM
Sew, a needle pulling thread....

This is one musical number that is beginning to get right under my skin,

A favourite ditty of a few friends of mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUb9pUcvcU

It's one on the more regrettable imports from that revolted colony.

(Note for the literate - curious grammar point above. "Revolt" in the relevant sense is generally intransitive, of course.)

Do intransitives refuse to wear a dress?

Depends on how you address the issue, no doubt.

I want to know....

Which is absolutely correct.

An historian.
A historian.
An history.
A history.

I understand that 'a' and 'an' could/can be "interchangeable " depending on dialect.
For example.....I'd say "A haddock".....But if you dropped the 'h'.....I suppose that "An 'addock" would sound right.

Answers on a postcard please.

Cheers - Confused of Wales.

So, what's this thread about then ?

Gwammer ??

IanS

Treat 'h' at the start of an unstressed syllable as a vowel - thus, an histor'ian, but a his'tory.
If the vowel has nothing to do with the pronunciation, as a result of either dialect ('addock) or our language's frankly deranged spelling (honour), ignore it and treat it as a vowel. And if a vowel has a consonantal sound (university), treat it as a consonant.

I'll have a small Frangelico, thank you. Or some Mexicans.