A little bit about a little word - SO

Listen to me read this post 



So, How have you been?  I know it's been a long time since you've heard from me.  It's been so long since I posted that you are probably wondering what happened to me. At least, I hope you have been wondering and you haven't forgotten about me entirely. 




The reason I haven't posted in so long is I moved from Vietnam to Pakistan.  

So, I hope you will forgive the long delay and we can continue learning American English together. 

So, you may have noticed that I use the word SO a lot.
It's a word you will hear when speaking to Americans but some people use it more than others. I happen to be one of those people. So, is a small word, just 2 letters SO, but it has many uses.  Here are a few.    

When people are speaking they often have words that they use to fill gaps in conversation, or to connect thoughts as they speak, like saying well or um. Most of the time the person speaking doesn't even realize they are saying it.  
So is one of those words.    

So can also be used with a question as a conversation opener.  That is how I started this post.  "So, how have you been?"  You can use it with someone you know or someone you just met.  For example,  
"So, how long have you been in this country?"  

SO can be used to bring a conversation back to the topic.  Sometimes when people are talking they get off track and start talking about something else or someone interrupts them and starts talking about something else.  SO is a way to bring the conversation back to the original topic.  Here's an example -

Imagine a sister and a brother are speaking.  The sister says...

Sister:  "I went to the book store to get my text book for Biology class"
and brother says ...
Brother: "Hey, my friend Bobby works at the bookstore.  You remember Bobby from our high school?  He played on the football team". 
And then sister might say ...
sister:  "So, I was looking for my book and they don't have any Biology books left!"
Sister used so to bring the conversation back to the topic she had started. 

So can also be used to show extremes.  This is used in informal speech. It wouldn't be used in a formal speaking engagement or a formal essay that you turn in to your teacher. But you can say something like ...
"Vietnam is so hot in the summer time." 
and by the way so is Pakistan!

And that's not all.  There are many idioms and casual sayings that use SO as well.  Here are a few.
"So sue me"  - it means I know I'm wrong but I don't care.
"so far, so good."  -  a response to "how are things going?" It means up to this point everything is fine.  
"I think so." -  You might say this if you don't feel 100% certain about your answer.  Is your brother dating Jennifer? "I think so but maybe they are just friends."


So, what do you think?  I hope you learned so much from this post that you will come back again.    

Thanks for listening.  This has been Cassie Brenn for Fastfoodenglish.blogspot.com