So, Here’s My Post

Right now, we are in the middle of an epidemic. I believe I am the first to report this epidemic in a public forum, and I hope by doing so I can spare you from being ravaged by this new disease.

The epidemic is the filler word “so.”

By the time I noticed this epidemic, I was already infected. I noticed it when I started to begin sentences with the word “So,” for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I never use filler words. As a public speaker, filler words are the devil, and here I was starting sentences with a ridiculous filler word.

Then I noticed the word “so” being used to begin sentences everywhere, including a sales conference at which I was speaking. Almost every speaker, mostly executives from the within the company, was already infected.

I started counting the times I heard a sentence begin with this new filler word in regular conversations. Two or three out of five sentences started with “so.” I could almost see the infection spread as one person used “so” and the person they were speaking with immediately matched them by beginning their next sentence that way.

It’s crazy. I know, right? Just sayin’ (I’m kidding. I’m not “just saying.”)