Who says 'so so'?
I hear a lot of non-native English speakers saying 'so so', it seems that some/a lot of Spanish-speakers translate mas o menos as so so. It is a phrase that I very rarely use or hear from natives.
Do you say 'so so', if so, where are you from etc. and how did you pick up the phrase?
9 Answers
I use it quite frequently, and it gets used quite frequently where I live. I'm in northwest Florida, which is like being in lower Alabama as far as culture goes. In fact, we are jokingly referred to as L. A. (lower Alabama, the joke being that it is exact opposite of Los Angeles).
It means not too bad, not too good. It could be better, but it could be worse. Fair-to-middlin', alright, ok, it'll do, and things like that there.
I still hear so-so quite frequently on US sportscasts. "He had a so-so performance," "coming from a so-so training camp," "a so-so fight," etc. I deduce that it can either mean "not so good, not so bad either," "boring (not fun)" or "mediocre" (like what's stated above), but these don't all translate to alright or OK, in my opinion. I do agree, though, that it seldom gets mentioned nowadays in casual conversations. On the other hand, así-así, I think, doesn't share its English counterpart's imminent obsolescence & is still being used quite often. Substitutes for así-así can be "regular", "normal", among others.
Like others above I use "so so" for "más o menos" and it is used a lot by native English speakers.
"How are you?
"So so, thanks" = not bad not good.
PS - I am from England.
Update from Dogwood's answer.
" Fair to middlin' " is an alternative.
I've heard "so-so" all my life.
I believe it had a start when balances were used to weigh fruits and vegetables. When an adequate amount of weight had been added to one side to balance the other, it was "so-so".
The term is used to reply to "How's it going?" or "How are you today?".
According to Webster's, the term was first used in the early 1500's. Synonyms are "middling" and "tolerable", other terms often used in response to similar questions.
I teach my students this:
"How are you?
"So so, thanks" = not bad not good.
By the way, I prefer British English, and I believe they use so-so more often.
Yes, it is rather used by non-native speakers (Venezuela). I've been working in the language field for about 6 years and it seems like a popular answer with most beginners.
From what I've heard from most students, they pick it up from TV and Movies.
I grew up in the middle-Atlantic states of the US hearing it from the elders in my family who used it as a synonym for mediocre. I can't remember the last time I heard it or said it so it must have been a long time ago. This may be a reflection of opinions about almost everything becoming polarized. Everything is terrible or wonderful and hyperbole is commonly accepted. Things that are only so-so aren't mentioned.
I use "so-so", but more often, I say "alright" or "okay". I don't think it's quite extinct yet as I still hear people say it. I'm from the Mid-Atlantic region.
I agree it is a rather old fashioned term that you don't hear used any more. Maybe those non-native speakers have some really old textbooks, lol.
When I would hear it in my youth, it would usually be when someone was asked how something was and they would reply, "It was only so-so."
When I took Spanish in high school in the '70s, we were taught to use así-así for so-so as a possible reply to "How are you."
I've heard más o menos used to mean "more or less" (like an approximation), which isn't really the same as so-so.
