I've posted about "so" already, mainly about the introductory type. I speculated that it was often used by scientists (eg on "In Our Time" with Melvyn Bragg on BBC R4) to give the appearance of a connected, cohesive argument, even if it was (sometimes) the first answer that came to them, or even an irrelevant or new topic. This idea has rather been confirmed by this Slate podcast. It finishes with the suggestion that this use of introductory or sentence-initial "So" may have originated in Silicon Valley with computer programmers (not programers, surely, but why not, if the stress is on pro-?). Thanks again to the ever reliable and very well-informed @StanCarey for the link there. (Scaled back my fulsome praise.)
http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/04/lexicon_valley_beginning_and_ending_all_of_our_thoughts_with_so_.html
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