"Exactly. Leading 'so' is a terrible thing, but I think the proliferation of the stand-alone 'day of' is worse." That 'exactly' is used to acknowledge what som

"Exactly. Leading 'so' is a terrible thing, but I think the proliferation of the stand-alone 'day of' is worse." That 'exactly' is used to acknowledge what someone said and then to lead in to a related but different thing. Or sometimes as just the acknowledgement. Leading 'so' seems to me to be a softener. "So...that's not what I meant, but it's reasonable", "So...here's what I've got. Tell me what you think", "So...we've got a problem.". I don't think anyone uses leading 'so' to say something positive except to ironically lower expectations. "So...we just signed a million-dollar contract". It gives people a chance to realize that something else is coming that's not wholly positive, I think. I don't really know. It's something I've picked up in SF and I use it all the time even though I'm fully conscious of how strange it sounds.