Anand Giridharadas of the New York Times traces the origins of using the word "so" to start sentences, and its widespread adoption.

So, it is widely believed that the recent ascendancy of "so" began in Silicon Valley. The journalist Michael Lewis picked it up when researching his 1999 book The New New Thing: "When a computer programmer answers a question," he wrote, "he often begins with the word 'so.'"

"What if, globally speaking, the iPad is not the next big thing? What if the next big thing is small, cheap and not American?" Anand Giridharadas on the global possibilities involving cheap, accessible, simple cellphones for texting and voicing, "in an age when more humans have access to cellphones than clean toilets."