So...so? (Random Musings on the Origins of Language)

Last week I learned that Microsoft, in ribbing its competitors in the Silicon Valley, claims to be the originators of starting sentences with "So...."

While researching the phenomenon, I found that Anand Giridharadas over at the New York Times, attempted to derive the source of this trend, and eventually flimsily related it to technology's influence on our modern lives.

So read the book, skip the movie.

However, years before, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney discussed the use of the word "so" in the introduction to his translation of Beowulf, an epic poem that (in this version) begins with the small conjunction, or interjection, in question.

Speaking about the Hiberno-English Scullion-speak operating in the poem, he explains:

..."so" operates as an expression which obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention.  

As a grandparent to our current language, and a good explanation of how we actually use the word idiomatically to this day, it looks like Old English has tech companies beat.