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  3. One can dredge up ancient instances of "so" as a sentence starter. In his 14th-century poem "Troilus and Criseyde," Chaucer laun

One can dredge up ancient instances of "so" as a sentence starter. In his 14th-century poem "Troilus and Criseyde," Chaucer laun

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问题     One can dredge up ancient instances of "so" as a sentence starter. In his 14th-century poem "Troilus and Criseyde," Chaucer launched a verse with, "So on a day he ... " But for most of its life, "so" has principally been a conjunction, an intensifier and an adverb, hiding in the middle of sentences. What is new is its status as the favored introduction to thoughts, its encroachment on the territory of "well," "oh," "urn" and so on.
    So it is widely believed that the recent ascendancy of "so" began in Silicon Valley. In immigrant-filled technology firms, it democratized talk by replacing a world of possible transitions with a catchall. And "so" suggested a kind of thinking that appealed to problem-solving software types: conversation as a logical, unidirectional process —if this, then that.
    This logical hint to "so" has followed it out of software. Compared to "well" and "urn," starting a sentence with "so" uses the whiff of logic to relay authority. Whereas "well" vacillates, "so" declaims. To answer a question with "so" better suits the age, perhaps: an age in which Facebook and Twitter encourage ordinary people to stay on message; in which we are moving toward declamatory blogs and away from down-the-middle reporting.
    "So" also echoes the creeping influence of science- and data-driven culture. It would have been unimaginable a few decades ago that ordinary people would quantify daily activities like eating and sleeping. 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. "
    And yet Galina Bolden, a linguistics scholar believes that "so" is also about the culture of empathy that is gaining steam as the world embraces the increasing complexity of human backgrounds and geographies. To begin a sentence with "oh," is to focus on what you have just remembered and your own concerns. To begin with "so," she said, is to signal that one’s coming words are chosen for their relevance to the listener. The ascendancy of "so," Dr. Bolden said, "suggests that we are concerned with displaying interest for others and downplaying our interest in our own affairs. "
    "So" seems also to reflect our tight relationship with time. Today we live in fragments. In such a world, "so" defragments, with its promise that what is coming next follows what just came, said Michael Erard, the author of "Um... : Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. " The rise of "so," he said, is "another symptom that our communication and conversational lives are chopped up and discontinuous in actual fact, but that we try in several ways to sew them together — or ’so’ them together, as it were — in order to create a continuous experience. "
    Perhaps we all live now in fear that a conversation could snap at any moment, could be interrupted by so many rival offerings. With "so," we beg to be heard. [510 words]
Chaucer’s poem is mentioned to show that in ancient times "so"______.
选项 A、was mainly limited to literary use
B、was occasionally used to begin a sentence
C、was mainly used in the middle of sentences
D、was favored as an introduction to thoughts
答案B
解析 本题考查写作目的。
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