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English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

theatlantic.com

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Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#81

Post by sophacles »

enraged_camel wrote: post #70
alex_c wrote: post #10

What's fascinating to me is that, unlike so many other language "changes", this isn't caused by laziness or carelessness. This seems to be a rare case where removing words adds information, rather than removing it: "The talks failed because of politics" means roughly what it says, while "The talks failed because politics" means roughly "The talks failed because of politics, which is the kind of thing that always happ…

>>"The talks failed because of politics" means roughly what it says, while "The talks failed because politics" means roughly "The talks failed because of politics, which is the kind of thing that always happens when politics are involved" Well, no. It actually alludes to the fact that politics was the hand-wavy excuse used to describe why the talks failed. It goes back to "X happened because aliens." As in, we can't…

Actually you're both right. (and you're therefore both wrong, because contradictions).

The "because ___" construct has the nice effect of making the listener associate multiple connotations of the ___ word. So in the case of politics, it means "handwavy politics without explanation" and "because this is always the excuse" and "politics fucks everything up" and all the other things you associate with the term. Similary because aliens invokes what you said, since we know that aliens are just a lazy excuse commonly used, and also they are basically magical beings (in common vernacular) so anything can be attributed to them (like fairies).

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#82

Post by EGreg »

I am not so sure internet idioms are of the same class as professionally written English structure. Otherwise UrbanDictionary and RapGenius should serve as the sources for today's written English.

These are two different genres. It's interesting to ask when something becomes so widely accepted that it is considered fine to use in "proper" english writing. If "because X" is, then so is LOL.

Incorporate ALL THE THINGS!

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#83

Post by dnautics »

__pThrow wrote: post #62
dnautics wrote: post #25

My suspicion is that this evolved from the phrase "because f-ck you, that's why", which is pretty old (~5-10 years). Edit: Oldest usage, as found by google: http://www.dkvine.com/games/dkl3/ (2001), line 807 in the source; this is probably not the first usage in all of english.

Yes, and instead of claiming it to be "explicitly ironic" as the author does, I had actually thought as I read it, it's mostly "implicitly fuck you."

it's usually used in non-sequitur situations where a rational explanation for an individual or entity in power is lacking. For example. "Q: why does the TSA allow me to 20 miniature scope bottles but not one big scope bottle to get past security? A: Because, f-you, that's why." It seems like in most of these "because, X" constructs, there is an appeal to an agent that has a higher authority or extremely potent, or surprising effect: Eg, "because, MATH" or, "because, yay!", or "because, tiny subatomic particles!" but you probably wouldn't use it for the mundane. "because, that's what I do every day" doesn't feel like the same cotstruct even though it has roughly the same form, unless you put a strong emphasis on it, e.g. "because, THAT'S WHAT I DO EVERY DAY". Which elevates the mundane to something omnipresent. Anyways, I'm not sure what constitutes "explicitly ironic", but in the situations where "because, fuck you" are called for seem pretty explicitly ironic to me.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#84

Post by apendleton »

See also another relatively recent grammatical innovation in English, the evolution of "slash" into a conjunction:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/04/24/slash-not...

(Someone elsewhere in the thread said the "because" construction was unusual because prepositions evolve more slowly than words of other parts of speech in English; this is true, but conjunctions typically move slowest of all. Such times we live in...)

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#85

Post by marincounty »

Being brief is great. I have always felt most people are overly wordy--especially in the technicial fields(600 page programming books go right in my recycling bin), but what I find irratitating is peope who use the constraints of the internet to be cute--too tired to exemplify, but Hip Chicks seem to gravitate towards this way communicating.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#86

Post by gweinberg »

humanrebar wrote: post #16

Maybe it's just me, but the "prepositional because" is usually deprecative of the subject. The article details the implications of the prepositional because: "It conveys focus... It conveys brevity... But it also conveys a certain universality." People use it when they're busy, drunk, or absent-minded to be self-deprecative. As in: "Maxed out my credit card because too much beer!" But people also use it to disparage…

Prepositional because is generally used in the same sense as "shut up, he explained." That is, it's not so much intended as an explanation as a conversation ender.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#87

Post by kentosi »

powertower wrote: post #8

That seems to dumb down the language, rather than improve or evolve it. > Skipping lunch today because sleep. What is that supposed to mean? You need to take a nap during lunch; you got too much sleep the night before and are groggy, etc. Why not add a few more words to make the sentence understandable (in this case non-ambiguous).

Does anyone think that the speaker's accent has something to do with it? Saying these sentences in my Australian accent just sounds plain wrong and slow. Maybe it's faster in the American accent.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#88

Post by alex_c »

enraged_camel wrote: post #70
alex_c wrote: post #10

What's fascinating to me is that, unlike so many other language "changes", this isn't caused by laziness or carelessness. This seems to be a rare case where removing words adds information, rather than removing it: "The talks failed because of politics" means roughly what it says, while "The talks failed because politics" means roughly "The talks failed because of politics, which is the kind of thing that always happ…

>>"The talks failed because of politics" means roughly what it says, while "The talks failed because politics" means roughly "The talks failed because of politics, which is the kind of thing that always happens when politics are involved" Well, no. It actually alludes to the fact that politics was the hand-wavy excuse used to describe why the talks failed. It goes back to "X happened because aliens." As in, we can't…

Interesting, we seem to be reading it differently. I don't think there's any real basis to say one reading is more valid than the other.

The way I read the construct, which the article touches on, is as shorthand to refer to universal properties of a subject that both the writer and the reader understand. "Because politics" = "because politics usually results in stupid outcomes", "because bacon" = "because bacon is delicious and should be in everything", "because racecar" = "because racecars throw out the rules of what you would expect in a regular car", etc. Used this way it becomes self-referrential as an obvious explanation - "of course talks failed, politics was involved". "Of course I put bacon, bacon is delicious". "Of course there's no interior, it's a race car".

Of course, different people may read different implied properties based on their own views, that may not be the same as what the writer had in mind...

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#89

Post by mortenjorck »

humanrebar wrote: post #16

Maybe it's just me, but the "prepositional because" is usually deprecative of the subject. The article details the implications of the prepositional because: "It conveys focus... It conveys brevity... But it also conveys a certain universality." People use it when they're busy, drunk, or absent-minded to be self-deprecative. As in: "Maxed out my credit card because too much beer!" But people also use it to disparage…

  "Maxed out my credit card because too much beer!"
I don't think this is a likely construction because it's too precise. It's too close in meaning to "maxed out my credit card because of too much beer." A more likely one would be "maxed out my credit card because beer" or even "maxed out my credit card because priorities," in which the context ironically implicates overspending on beer."
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