Comments for Anand Giridharadas - Columnist and Author of India Calling

Comment on ‘So’ Pushes to the Head of the Line by Steve W

Steve W — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:12:11 +0000

Google Live Help Chat on YouTube.

Comment on ‘So’ Pushes to the Head of the Line by Steve W

Steve W — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:07:28 +0000

So I just found an explosion from Silicon Valley.

Google AdWords associates have live online help chat and post it to YouTube.

It’s unreal.

Comment on ‘So’ Pushes to the Head of the Line by Steve W

Steve W — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:54:34 +0000

Follow Up: So I found a classic video excerpt from CNBC April 18, 2012.

Comment on Narratives With No Need for Translation by Dan Kurland

Dan Kurland — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:51:18 +0000

Katherine Boo’s achievement with indigenous metaphor is equally, if not more so, evident, in Tupelo Hassman’s brilliant “Girlchild: A Novel” , a work which at once deals in new images and simply reminds us of our past. Cross-cultural WITHIN America.

Comment on Narratives With No Need for Translation by G Subhash

G Subhash — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:08:49 +0000

Your vision of the future, and your airline metaphor, are both compelling, but you can’t change hub-and-spoke to point-to-point by re-painting the planes. Boo merely uses a more authentic vocabulary; her American thought process and American target audience are intact. Perhaps you’re guilty of a little naivete and projection? A change in the word traffic networks will not occur so easily.

Comment on ‘So’ Pushes to the Head of the Line by Jonathan Devlin

Jonathan Devlin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:12:35 +0000

So persistent and annoying is this widely prevalent and incorrect usage of the word “so,” that, a year later, I feel compelled to rail against it! I can fully appreciate that the bad habit of using the word “so” at the beginning of EVERY sentence began in Silicon Valley. In 1983, after having earned a master’s degree in psychology; having written dozens of papers and a master’s thesis, yet unable to find a job in my field, I trained to become a computer technician. I ultimately found myself working with people who were extremely bright, but functionally illiterate. My colleagues, as well as engineers, software engineers, programmers, etc., could not spell to save their lives. They could not tell the difference between the words “there,” “they’re,” or “their,” which they used interchangeably, completely ignorant of the difference. This practice, itself, I believe, came from relying on “spell-checkers” in word processing and text editing programs which haven’t the first clue what the meaning of one’s writing is, it’s merely looking for misspelled words. Since any of the three forms of “there…” are spelled correctly, the software ‘passes’ them.

So (and this is a correct use of the word “so,”), it is no wonder that a person who has a great fluency in a programming language, but no affinity whatsoever for a literary or spoken language, like English, would fall into the habit of using “so” at the start of a sentence – indeed, of EVERY sentence!

So annoying is this practice that it causes me to cringe at every instance – no less than dragging fingernails along a blackboard!

The real question is, ‘would it be improper to shoot people who begin every sentence with the word “so?”

Comment on In Fight for Better India, Best to Look Within by K. Kahng

K. Kahng — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:30:32 +0000

Thanks for the great article. I often travel to South Korea and visit my relatives there but Korean people dampens my experience every time. They don’t hold door and push you in subway. Your article answered many of my questions why they behave in a way they do.
Korea had been colonized by Japan and devastated by war. Shortage and low moral had made people uncivil even after they got out of poverty, they still behaves the same way they did before. I wonder if there is a hope for them to bring real change.

Comment on ‘So’ Pushes to the Head of the Line by Steve W

Steve W — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:07:12 +0000

Thank You People!

So I was getting irritatingly discouraged when it took 4-5 different “increase of the word ‘so’ to begin a sentence” combinations when searching GOOG before I landed here.

I too find it prominent on CNBC, but it is really everywhere with the non-recurring guest. Not a guest like Dennis Miller who appears every week on The Factor, for example.

This trend that begun in 2010 has become parabolic in 2012. I am convinced it is being taught somewhere like suggested before by an interview or talking head coach – as opposed to copycat. This is why I think it is only really happening with newer, younger, first-time guests. The experienced are not in need of a coach, therefore they are not exposed to the new teaching.

*The biggest offenders – guests who are showing items lined up on a table such as new gadgets or low-carb food options, for example. 90% of all of these people, like on the Today Show or your local morning news, begin every single response including their initial response with it.

I agree with Tom in #18 that is:
“used as a false connector- sleight-of-mouth used to evade answering a question directly and, instead, help the speaker return to prepared talking points.”

….or also not even to return to the prepared talking point or script – but to begin the prepared script that has been rehearsed 50 times the night before.

Comment on ‘So’ Pushes to the Head of the Line by gtnsteve

gtnsteve — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:49:15 +0000

For a long while I have thought that this usage was taught by media trainers to those who might be questioned by reporters or by attorneys in mass tort lawsuit depositions. I imagined that the purpose of the tic was to blunt or deflect the implications of the question to which the “so” answer was responding. Now I am not so sure (sorry).

Comment on Modifying a Definition of Modernity by Vera Khan

Vera Khan — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 11:37:40 +0000

I was brought to your site by reading your piece describing the dating site for married couples. I admire your writing and feel a kinship with your ideas. Before I share my thoughts about that article, I should tell you that I am a 74 year old woman who lives half the year in China, the other half in the States visiting family and friends.I have authored two books on China and am currently writing a comparative study of China and the U.S. I call your description of the two friends: When Meditation Meets Business. But the real reason, the article interests me is that it foreshadows the changes that are likely to characterize the institution of “marriage” in the new world order. In some predictions or prophecies, the future of marriage will be “free love” but that is an open term, so ambiguous as to be useless. How will love be institutionalized in a society in which the personal satisfactions of each and every individual – as members of organic communities – becomes the standard of value, replacing money as the goal that shapes human behavior? I am currently living in Wuxi, China and look forward to reading more of your articles.