"So, in answer to your question..."

So, meanwhile at the poolhall, the Lone Ranger was having his balls racked.

ouch

I'm going with this. I remember back in the 70's - the engineers that trained me back in the dark ages, used the term a lot.

"But in the algorithmic times that have come, “so” conveys an algorithmic certitude. It suggests that there is a right answer, which the evidence dictates and which must not be contradicted. Among its synonyms, after all, are “consequently,” “thus” and “therefore.”"

A is true and B is true, so C must also be true.

I think that was before Microsoft, but it did come from logic.

I am going to start my sentences from now on with 'thus.'

"How are you?"
"Thus, it starts."
"What do you mean by that? What did I say?"
"Thus, it continues, the constant stream of questions."
"I asked you how you were, you putz. I am out of here."
<door slam>
"Thus am I free."

Joe(If I had only known this a few years ago.)Nation

I keep hearing this every day now. CBC reporter interviews a programmer, who can't go through three consecutive sentences without starting at least one of them with "so."

(Ragman, you screwed that joke up . . .

Meanwhile, back at the pool hall, Tonto, not knowing the Lone Ranger was disguised as a pool table, racked his balls.)

I don't think I ever use so in an attempt to make something more casual. I think I just mean it as followup to an actual or fanciful set of thoughts. Of course, I may be wrong, as I probably use it all sorts of ways.

Agree.
But I think it prefigured (what does that mean?) the seventies.

Sounds like another thing to add to the "get over yourself" list to me.

Adding to my own get-over-it list of annoying newisms is answering the phone when someone calls me and instead of saying hello they ask, "What's up?" Um... you called ME! It's supposedly a modern replacement for "How are you?" Drives me batty!

Don't get me started. They're almost as annoying as the people who call you and start the conversation by saying "Hello? Who am I speaking to?" ("You called me, idiot! Who am I speaking to?")

my answer to that is always...

if you don't know, we have no further business, good-bye now.

You're wrong, Merry, because you've given no context. This is the way that these silly prescriptions get started. Where did you hear this one from?

You're not a hypocrite in this posting but don't let that get you down for you do hypocrite really well.

My pool cue is bent,

I haven't noticed Joe's 'so' used in that manner.

I wrote:

I haven't noticed Joe's 'so' used in that manner.

Let me amend that.

I haven't noticed Joe's 'so' used in that manner, though it's certainly a possibility.

That's the funny thing about changes to a language, Set - people use them.

If one Googles, "So, how's by you?" a few references will show up, including this one:
http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/932607094/m/3991065133
I am old enough to remember the old black and white tv sitcom The Goldbergs, where Molly Picon, as Mrs. Goldberg, leaning on her elbows at her window to speak to a neighbor would ask, "So, how's by you?" This might have been a translation from the Yiddish, which is just a dialect of German.

There are influences on the language that many are not aware of. For example, the Eastern European syntax is the basis for the humorous phrase, "I threw my mother from the train a kiss."

It is also my opinion that the expression that seems to be omnipresent, "Oh my God!!!" was started by (you guessed it) the 1970's Jewish Princess. It became omnipresent in the vernacular maybe a decade or two later by mostly girls. It reminds me of how the bagel became a New York bread. OMG.

Anyway, "So" existed way before the 21st century, in a demographic far afield from where it is now used; perhaps overused?

Well duh!

Let me be perfectly clear: I'm well aware that "so" is not a neologism, and that it has many perfectly good uses. I'm solely interested in answers to questions that begin with "so," such as in the following example:

"How do you get from here to there?"
"So, the first thing you do..."

yeah.

Joe(Certainly is)Nation

My point was that I believe it could very well reflect the English that Jewish New Yorkers spoke in the first half of the 20th century when many still spoke with a sing-song Yiddish accent. Many people that use it today would not likely know it was once the standard phraseology of the Lower East Side.

Starting a sentence with "so" is part of many a Jewish joke. "So, how's your son?" - "So, things could be worse" - etc., etc.

So, who gives a ****?