"Labour stole my money"

Workerdrone

steampowered said:

It is ironic that the father seems so interest in his pensions, when he has apparently never bothered to look at his pension statements. 

Reminds me of my earlier pension envy thread. People have a tendency to blame outside factors rather than their own lack of action.

Username03725

barnstar2077 said:

Username03725 said:

barnstar2077 said:

So, I had lunch with my new lady friend and her father today. 

Maybe he was annoyed at finding his daughter has taken up with someone who starts his sentences with 'So'. 

So what? :  )

Very good. In any forum if a peeve is raised it is an absolute 100% certainty that someone will respond with that peeve. Congratulations on being that person.

So has a use as an opener in real life. Some people need to make a noise before speaking to gain attention to the impending speech, much like those who gesticulate with their hands are attempting to draw attention to the fact that they're speaking. In a written piece though? Duhh... we're already reading it; you have the reader's fullest attention.

So is fine when developing or continuing a previous idea or thought, where a concept has been established and is then expanded on in further sentences. So it's not a complete no-no. 

Where So doesn't work and where it grates so much is when people use it to introduce a completely new thought or process, and when used as a response to a direct question, such as interviewees on Today - "I must say minister, it looks as though the government is a nasty sleazy group of individuals on the make. Is it?" "So Nick you'll know that blah blah blah" [continues for the allotted time remaining in the interview]. So as a response to a direct question is just wrong. It's filler, it gives the impression of reciting pat answers that don't relate to the question, and on a wider scale shows the interviewee up as a dumbo. Well prepared confident speakers who know their subject don't seem to use So as a starter.

OldBeanz

Surprised there has been no mention of Margaret Thatcher. She is still being blamed for everything in Scotland 30 years after she left office.

Malthusian

Username03725 said:

barnstar2077 said:

So, I had lunch with my new lady friend and her father today. 

Maybe he was annoyed at finding his daughter has taken up with someone who starts his sentences with 'So'. 

Like, if it's good enough for the author of Beowulf it's good enough for me.

Hwæt! Wē Gār‐Dena⁠in geār‐dagum þēod‐cyninga⁠þrym gefrūnon...

So! Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings...

DaveMcG

The March 1993 Budget of Norman Lamont cut the ACT rate and tax credit to 22.5% from April 1993, and 20% from April 1994.[7] These changes were accompanied with a cut of income tax on dividends to 20%, while the basic rate of income tax remained at 25%. Persons liable for tax were lightly affected by the change, because income tax liability was still balanced by the tax credit received, although higher rate tax payers paid an additional 25% tax on the amount of the dividend actually received (net), as against 20% before the change.[citation needed] The change had bigger effects on pensions and non-taxpayers. A pension fund receiving a £1.2 m dividend income prior to the change would have been able to reclaim £400,000 in tax, giving a total income of £1.6 m. After the change, only £300,000 was reclaimable, reducing income to £1.5 m, a fall of 6.25%.[citation needed] 

Gordon Brown's summer Budget of 1997[20] ended the ability of pension funds and other tax-exempt companies to reclaim tax credits with immediate effect, and for individuals from April 1999.[11] This tax change has been blamed for the poor state of British pension provision, while usually ignoring the more significant effect of the dot-com crash of 2000 onwards when the FTSE-100 lost half its value to fall from 6930 at the beginning of 2000 to just 3490 by March 2003. Despite this, critics such as Member of Parliament Frank Field described it as a "hammer blow" and the Sunday Times described it as a swindle,[21] with the hypothetical £1.5 m income described above falling to £1.2 m, a fall in income of 20%, because no tax would be reclaimable

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_corporation_tax

One thing forgotten by Brown haters is that pension funds' income from bonds was unaffected and he reduced corporation tax slightly allowing companies to grow faster or increase dividends, slightly mitigating the loss of tax credits.

And of course the tens of thousands of pensioners who would have been left penniless under the previous government's arrangements can thank Brown for creating the Pension Protection Fund.

barnstar2077

Username03725 said:

barnstar2077 said:

Username03725 said:

barnstar2077 said:

So, I had lunch with my new lady friend and her father today. 

Maybe he was annoyed at finding his daughter has taken up with someone who starts his sentences with 'So'. 

So what? :  )

Very good. In any forum if a peeve is raised it is an absolute 100% certainty that someone will respond with that peeve. Congratulations on being that person.

So has a use as an opener in real life. Some people need to make a noise before speaking to gain attention to the impending speech, much like those who gesticulate with their hands are attempting to draw attention to the fact that they're speaking. In a written piece though? Duhh... we're already reading it; you have the reader's fullest attention.

So is fine when developing or continuing a previous idea or thought, where a concept has been established and is then expanded on in further sentences. So it's not a complete no-no. 

Where So doesn't work and where it grates so much is when people use it to introduce a completely new thought or process, and when used as a response to a direct question, such as interviewees on Today - "I must say minister, it looks as though the government is a nasty sleazy group of individuals on the make. Is it?" "So Nick you'll know that blah blah blah" [continues for the allotted time remaining in the interview]. So as a response to a direct question is just wrong. It's filler, it gives the impression of reciting pat answers that don't relate to the question, and on a wider scale shows the interviewee up as a dumbo. Well prepared confident speakers who know their subject don't seem to use So as a starter.

So, that must have taken some effort to type out, hope you feel better for it.

[Deleted User]

OldBeanz said:

Surprised there has been no mention of Margaret Thatcher. She is still being blamed for everything in Scotland 30 years after she left office.

Forget Scotland. I blame her for 90% of problems in Canada.  All the Scottish trade unionists became “Thatcher refugees” and are still causing trouble here. 

Pablo7474

Username03725 said:

barnstar2077 said:

So, I had lunch with my new lady friend and her father today. 

Maybe he was annoyed at finding his daughter has taken up with someone who starts his sentences with 'So'. 

For once a bit of laughter in a pensions forum due to the topic raised by the OP and someone has to come along and be unkind and ruin it. Miserable so and so! 

Ganga

Pablo7474 said:

Username03725 said:

barnstar2077 said:

So, I had lunch with my new lady friend and her father today. 

Maybe he was annoyed at finding his daughter has taken up with someone who starts his sentences with 'So'. 

For once a bit of laughter in a pensions forum due to the topic raised by the OP and someone has to come along and be unkind and ruin it. Miserable so and so! 

They got frowned upon for starting with this ,what will they make of you ending with it 

Pablo7474

I am pleased you noticed! 😁