So, anyway ... ...
A tweet from Richard Dawkins (English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author - Wikipedia) this morning asked the question : "So why do so many Americans begin a story with "So" ? Is it the 140 chars version of "Once upon a time" ? " (for the uninitiated in the regulations of Twitter "chars" refers to the 140 characters or less that a tweet is made up of) My first reaction to this question was - I do this all the time, especially on blogs. If this is an americanism I think I should stop ! Other comments suggest that it is a way of framing - the time, situation, place without having to go into detail of the full context at that point in the story. "Anyway" is used in much the same way, or in some circumstances "well". Of course it's neither an American 'thing' nor an English one. Every language and culture appears to have a version. Bueno in Spanish, perhaps d'accord in French, W'allah...