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English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

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Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#151

Post by kissickas »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #122
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…

Upvoted this comment because valid.

Did you mean to disprove the OP comment? I ask because irony.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#153

Post by dgreensp »

dgreensp wrote: post #55
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…

I'd call it a grammatical construction. Your brain already knows how to "typecast" a noun to a reason ("Why didn't the bill pass?" "I don't know. Politics."), it's just not usually grammatically "licensed" in this case. If you've been infected by the "because [noun]" meme, however, you have a construction in your vocabulary (we could say in your idiolect) that can be invoked to explain any instances of "because [noun…

I just came across a variant in the wild -- a Quora comment -- which puts the noun as the thing to be explained rather than the explanation:

That was the point if the question, though. "If God does not exist, then how come physics?" And the answer is, "You can just leave off the 'God' part and just ask 'how come physics?'"

I wonder why "how come [noun]" is recognizable as sort of the same thing.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#154

Post by zaphar »

jrockway wrote: post #104

I'm not yet convinced that this is something one can use and not get laughed at for quite yet. It's fine for informal communications because your readers are probably not too literate, but I fear that this might still confuse an older generation used to more formal grammatical constructions. All of the examples are just social media wanking, as far as I can tell, so probably not indicative of any actual shift in how…

I use this construction in conversational english with my coworkers all the time.

The first time I heard it I instantly knew what it was and then I thought. "That's a clever language hack".

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#155

Post by zaphar »

jrockway wrote: post #104

I'm not yet convinced that this is something one can use and not get laughed at for quite yet. It's fine for informal communications because your readers are probably not too literate, but I fear that this might still confuse an older generation used to more formal grammatical constructions. All of the examples are just social media wanking, as far as I can tell, so probably not indicative of any actual shift in how…

I use this construction in conversational english with my coworkers all the time.

The first time I heard it I instantly knew what it was and then I thought. "That's a clever language hack".

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#156

Post by triangleman »

russell wrote: post #58
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…

My favorite: Putting Root Beer in a square cup makes it regular beer because math. It took me a few seconds to get my head around that one.

The author of that tweet could have eliminated "beacuse math" entirely.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#157

Post by delluminatus »

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…

I think it acknowledges a failure in explanation -- you start with, "The talks failed because...", but there is no easy reason why the talks failed. So you just put a word in there. "Politics." It's an aborted attempt at explanation. It implies extensive context and a truly complex or even incomprehensible explanation.

The grammatical failure is the kind that would happen in speech, when the speaker suddenly realizes he's bit off more than he can chew, and truncates his explanation with a pause, a word, a shrug, and a rueful smile. "because, you know... politics."

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#158

Post by michaelt »

astrobe_ wrote: post #139
lmkg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "idiom" is an apt description. It's a compact phrase that conveys at least two layers of meaning. Most importantly, one of those meanings cannot simply be parsed from the direct syntax & vocabulary that make up the phrase, but relies on the cultural familiarity with the phrase and its common usage. I do wonder, though, how long this secondary meaning will last. Right now the dismissive connotation comes about…

> Language evolution doesn't really happen much in literate societies like ours, so it's neat that we have an example unfolding before our eyes. I believe that we write more than we ever did. But what we write is not literature but a written form of casual conversation (blog comments, forum posts, IM, IRC, email...). It seems to me that it is likely, on the contrary, to favour a faster evolution of the language; espe…

It depends on the parts of language you're referring to. Pre-1600 in the days before widespread mechanized transport, mass media and printing Britain ended up with a lot of regional dialects and ways of spelling the same words [1] as mutations had to conquer a much smaller population to get a secure foothold.

We see minor evolutions in language these days - an extra word or changed usage to keep the dictionary-writers employed - but is there anything comparable to the differences you'd see across Britain in the 1600s?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_Englis...

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#159

Post by dameyawn »

I don't think preposition is correct. It's still being used as a subordinating conjunction with the second clause being an implied complete sentence.

Take the current top comment example. "because politics" actually implies a sentence something like "The talks failed because of politics, which is the kind of thing that always happens when politics are involved."

It's a common rule-check for grammar to substitute these complete sentences in order to understand the short-hand rule applications.

Re: English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet

#160

Post by lmkg »

astrobe_ wrote: post #139
lmkg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "idiom" is an apt description. It's a compact phrase that conveys at least two layers of meaning. Most importantly, one of those meanings cannot simply be parsed from the direct syntax & vocabulary that make up the phrase, but relies on the cultural familiarity with the phrase and its common usage. I do wonder, though, how long this secondary meaning will last. Right now the dismissive connotation comes about…

> Language evolution doesn't really happen much in literate societies like ours, so it's neat that we have an example unfolding before our eyes. I believe that we write more than we ever did. But what we write is not literature but a written form of casual conversation (blog comments, forum posts, IM, IRC, email...). It seems to me that it is likely, on the contrary, to favour a faster evolution of the language; espe…

You probably won't see this reply, but what I meant was...

Change in our language is slowed because we have high exposure to how the language was used decades, or generations, in the past. This exposure 'anchors' our language to a much greater extent than societies that do not have a high rate of written or audio records.

We acquire language in the form that it is used around us. In the absence of records, this means that the last generation's "slang" becomes our "normal speech," and whatever was spoken sixty years back is something we've never heard. This makes for a high rate of linguistic turnover, and four generations of separation will usually result in mutual incomprehensibility.

In modern times, I'm regularly being influenced by English that's 50 years old via Star Trek, Star Wars, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Silver Surfer comic books. Because I still have exposure to generations-old versions of English, my speech will continue to resemble them.

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