Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’[…].”So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.
(informal)Used as a sentence-starting filler or introductory word forpragmatic orphatic purposes, with no particular meaning.
[…] though all the windes of doctrin were let loose play upon the earth,so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength.
1743,Robert Drury,The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar[3], London, page111:
I went away very well satisfy’d, not caring where I was sent,so it was but out of his Sight; for he now became more my Aversion than ever.
Chiefly in North American use, acomma orpause is often used before the conjunction when used in the sensewith the result that. (A similar meaning can often be achieved by using asemicolon orcolon (without theso), as for example:He drank the poison; he died.)
The apparently meaningless use of "so" to begin sentences, such as replies to questions, where there is no relevant sense of "in order that" or "for that reason", has become increasingly common over the early part of the 21st century, and has been widely described as irritating.[4][5][6][7][8].
Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’[…].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see somethingso amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.
Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun isso much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.
We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect ofso large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.
Captain Edward Carlisle[…]felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze,[…]; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meetso superb a woman as this under handicapso hard.
Very much.
But Iso want to see the Queen when she visits our town!
Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was always ready to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemedso unjust.
Don′t know what it is that makes me love youso, / I only know I never want to let you go.
In the same manner or to the same extent as aforementioned;likewise,also.
Just as you have the right to your free speech,so I have the right to mine. Many people say she's the world's greatest athlete, but I don't thinkso."I can count backwards from one hundred." "So can I."
"Good morrow to thee, jolly fellow," quoth Robin, "thou seemest happy this merry morn." ¶ "Ay, that am I," quoth the jolly Butcher, "and why should I not beso? Am I not hale in wind and limb? Have I not the bonniest lass in all Nottinghamshire? And lastly, am I not to be married to her on Thursday next in sweet Locksley Town?"
1920,Edward Carpenter,Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published1921, page192:
The work thus done has probably been of the greatest value to the human race; but, just as in other cases it has sometimes happened that the effort to do a certain work has resulted in the end in an unbalanced exaggerationso here.
It was a goal that meant West Ham won on their first appearance at Wembley in 31 years, in doingso becoming the first team since Leicester in 1996 to bounce straight back to the Premier League through the play-offs.
2019, Amanda Koci, Henry Walter, Charlie Puth, Maria Smith, Victor Thellm, Gigi Grombacher, Roland Spreckle, “So Am I”, performed byAva Max:
Use ofso in the senseto theimplied extent is discouraged in formal writing; spoken intonation which might render the usage clearer is not usually apparent to the reader, who might reasonably expect theextent to be made explicit. For example, the reader may expectHe isso good to be followed by an explanation or consequence of how goodhe is. Devices such as use of underscoring and theexclamation mark may be used as a means of clarifying that the implicit usage is intended; capitalisingSO is also used. The derivative subsensesvery andvery much are similarly more apparent with spoken exaggerated intonation.
The difference betweenso andvery in implied-extent usage is thatvery is more descriptive or matter-of-fact, whileso indicates more emotional involvement. For example,she is very clever is a simple statement of opinion;she isso clever suggests admiration. Likewise,that is very typical is a simple statement;that is SO typical of him! is an indictment. A formal (and reserved) apology may be expressedI am very sorry, but after elbowing someone in the nose during a basketball game, a man might say,Dude, I amso sorry! in order to ensure that it's understood as an accident.[1]
1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, inZollenstein, New York, N.Y.:D. Appleton & Company,→OCLC:
“My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quiteso,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
The details of her own life crowded out everything else; almost every time I saw Min, she had something new to tell me. It sometimes felt as if the laws of the physical world did not apply to her, that she had only to think of something — a job switch, a breakup — to make itso. If I didn’t see her for a while, she might forget to tell me that she had quit a factory or gotten a raise, because in her mind she had already moved on.
So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all.
Used as a question to ask for further explanation of something said, often rhetorically or in a dismissive or impolite manner.
"You park your car in front of my house every morning." — "So?"
Used as a meaningless filler word to begin a response to a question.
What are you doing? /So I'm just fixing this shelf.
What time does the train leave? /So it leaves at 10 o'clock.
(archaic) Be as you are; stand still;used especially to cows; also used by sailors.
Though certain uses of "sentence-initial so" had been common for a long time, the perceived excessive use of the word at the start of sentences, such as at the start of answers to questions, became controversial in the 2010s, being described as "annoying".[1][2]
Shortened fromsol, to make it anopen syllable for uniformity with the rest of the scale, from Glover'ssolmization, fromMiddle Englishsol(“fifth degree or note of Guido of Arezzo's hexachordal scales”),Italiansol in the solmization of Guido of Arezzo, from the first syllable ofLatinsolve(“wash away”) in the lyrics of the scale-ascending hymnUt queant laxis by Paulus Deacon.
“so”, inKielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish][10] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki:Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland),2004–, retrieved2023-07-03
2018,Gerhard Czermak,Eric Hilgendorf,Religions- und Weltanschauungsrecht. Eine Einführung, 2nd edition, Springer,→DOI,→ISBN, § 7 Individuelle Religions- und Weltanschauungsfreiheit Rn. 130, page68:
Im Einzelnen ist dieAbgrenzung zwischen Bekenntnisfreiheit und Religionsausübungsfreiheit unsicher.So kann etwa die religiöse Kleidung auch der Religionsausübungsfreiheit zugeordnet werden.
In detail the difference between freedom of confessing and freedom of practicing religion is insecure.Thus for instance, religious clothing can be assigned to the freedom of practicing religion as well.
Und er so wie aus heiterem Himmelso: Momentchen, da läuft doch Hip-Hop! Und ichso: Ja, das ist richtig! Und erso: Biste auch Rapper? Und ichso: Ja, so Hobby Und der Typ so originalso: Oh welch ein Zufall, das bin ich nämlich auch!
2022 May 16, Lou Zucker, “Erwartungen beim Dating: Mehr als das Minimum”, inDie Tageszeitung: taz[11],→ISSN:
Besonders überzeugt hatte mich dieser Moment meines Dates: „Ich habe gesagt: Ich weiß nicht, ob ich mich gerade bereit für Sex fühle. Da lag ich schon halb nackt in seinem Bett. Und erso: Cool, dann können wir ja einfach knutschen und kuscheln!“
This quotation particle can be combined with a number of verbs but, somewhat unusually, it doesn't require the clause to contain any predicate at all. In such cases, the meaning is roughly that oftosay in the past tense.
So, das sind die Entscheidungen der größten Gelehrten über die doch nicht ganz unwichtige Frage, wie eine der Sprachen auszusprechen sei, in der jahraus jahrein in Deutschland gutgezählte 50 000 junge Menschenkinder unterrichtet werden. Trotz jenen Entscheidungen ist natürlich noch lange nicht daran zu denken, daß dem Unfug einer als gänzlich falsch erkannten Aussprache des Griechischen ein Ende gesetzt wäre. Der Schlendrian wird auf diesem Gebiete des Schulwesens wohl ebenso lange dauern, wie auf vielen andern; denn bequem ist allerdings jener Schlendrian, nur wissenschaftlich ist er nicht, und unbrauchbar für das Leben ist er obendrein. Die Beseitigung des Schlendrians werde ich wohl nicht mehr erleben, auch dann nicht, wenn Plato selber aus der Asche auferstünde und die deutschen Schulmänner die richtige Aussprache lehrte. Sie würden ihm beweisen, daß er sich irre: er habe in den mehr als zwei Jahrtausenden seit seinem Tode gewiß die richtige Aussprache vergessen; sie aber, die deutschen Oberlehrer und Direktoren, kennten sie ganz genau: sie wäre buchstäblich so wie das Neuhochdeutsche des 20. Jahrhunderts gewesen.
So these are the reckonings of the greatest scholars about the not quite insignificant question how one of the languages which is taught to about 50 000 young lads per annum should be pronounced. In spite of these reckonings by far it is not to think that this buffoonery of an utterly wrong pronunciation of Greek would come to an end. The litherness in this field of schooling will last as long as in many others; for convenient it is forsooth, but scientific it is not, and devoid of use for life ’tis on top. The elimination of this litherness I will not be an observer of in my lifetime, even if Plato himself were to rise from his ashes and teach the pedants the right pronunciation. They would shew him his being at fault: he surely has forgot the right pronunciation; but them, the senior and head teachers know it very well; it would be literally like the New High German of the 20th century.
Munster form ofseo(used after a word ending in a velarized ("broad") consonant)
1939, Peig Sayers, “Inghean an Cheannaidhe”, inMarie-Louise Sjoestedt,Description d’un parler irlandais de Kerry (Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études;270) (overall work in French), Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, page193:
Ní raibh aoinne cloinne age n-a muinntir ach í agus do mhéaduigh sin uirrim agus grádh na ndaoine don inghean ógso.
Her parents had no children but her, and that increased the esteem and love of the people forthis young girl.
Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008),Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages[12], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
Henrik Liljegren, Naseem Haider (2011) “so”, inPalula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7)[13], Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives,→ISBN
Turner, Ralph Lilley (1969–1985) “so”, inA Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, London: Oxford University Press
Henrik Liljegren, Naseem Haider (2011) “so”, inPalula Vocabulary (FLI Language and Culture Series; 7)[14], Islamabad, Pakistan: Forum for Language Initiatives,→ISBN
^Boretzky, Norbert, Igla, Birgit (1994) “so”, inWörterbuch Romani-Deutsch-Englisch für den südosteuropäischen Raum : mit einer Grammatik der Dialektvarianten [Romani-German-English dictionary for the Southern European region] (in German), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag,→ISBN, page262a
^Marcel Courthiade (2009) “so? I”, in Melinda Rézműves, editor,Morri angluni rromane ćhibǎqi evroputni lavustik = Első rromani nyelvű európai szótáram : cigány, magyar, angol, francia, spanyol, német, ukrán, román, horvát, szlovák, görög [My First European-Romani Dictionary: Romani, Hungarian, English, French, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Romanian, Croatian, Slovak, Greek] (overall work in Hungarian and English), Budapest: Fővárosi Onkormányzat Cigány Ház--Romano Kher,→ISBN, page327a
Walter Breu and Giovanni Piccoli (2000),Dizionario croato molisano di Acquaviva Collecroce: Dizionario plurilingue della lingua slava della minoranza di provenienza dalmata di Acquaviva Collecroce in Provincia di Campobasso (Parte grammaticale).
Used when the next word begins withs,z,š orž or with a consonant cluster containing one of these consonants. It is also used with the pronounmnou(“me”).
“so”, inSlovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak),https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk,2003–2025
So is very rare in modern Spanish, surviving only in certain expressions, includingso pena de(“on pain of, under penalty of”),so pretexto de orso color de(“under pretext of”),a so capa(“secretly, with bribery”).
Thisetymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at theEtymology scriptorium. Particularly: “This word had initial*k-r or*c-r in Old Vietnamese: it was written as𨋤 (i.e.車 (MC kjo|tsyhae) +盧 (MC lu)).”
