I so want to write this

SO - such a small word yet it conveys a lot especially to the kids today. Words like quite, very, extremely and really are replaced by the single most powerful word ' SO '.

Sometime in 1996-97 I went to Calcutta to attend my friend's wedding. I was staying at my uncle's place who is a stickler for correct English among other things. He still types out emails like letters
Dear so-'n-so... Comma.... Next line... Maybe an indent... No unnecessary abbreviations... Proper capitalization... 2-3 paras ending with yours affly sorry affectionately... Anyway, my first lesson on 'SO' was from him. He asked how the wedding was. And I said with great enthusiasm, "it was so beautiful". He added, "that??". I said "huh!" He explained, "it was so beautiful that... . The word 'so' expects a part that starts with 'that'". Oh! And he was actually waiting for me to answer. I changed and said that it was very beautiful :-)

It was so awful!
It was so unfair!
Mom, you are so bad!

Now how do I tell these kids??

English is changing adapting and growing as a language. Googling is an acceptable word. Vedanta is accepted by Microsoft Word which brings up red squiggly marks for colour, authorise or metre. So I guess the use of 'so cool' only in informal talk would graduate to formal writing too.

There is actually a paper on this and a lot of noise on the Internet.

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