Let's try to reboot this thread ....

> I always thought that "eristic" meant "an irritating tendency in
> speech to start every sentence with 'Er...'"

I vote for "solipsistic": the tendency for "So" to trip off the lips at the start every statement, which makes it sound as if the first half of said statement has been edited out.

It's actually short for "You haven't been to Stanford, so let me put it this way ....". You can spot somebody who has been to Stanford by the three-second pause after the "So", while their speech centres get reprogrammed for speaking with us mortals (and a very good job they make of it, too .... they've been to Stanford).