English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet
However it originated, though, the usage of “because-noun” (and of “because-adjective” and “because-gerund”) is one of those distinctly of-the-Internet, by-the-Internet movements of language. It conveys focus (linguist Gretchen McCulloch: “It means something like ‘I’m so busy being totally absorbed by X that I don’t need to explain further, and you should know about this because it’s a completely valid incredibly important thing to be doing’”). It conveys brevity (Carey: “It has a snappy, jocular feel, with a syntactic jolt that allows long explanations to be forgone” “It has a snappy, jocular feel, with a syntactic jolt that allows long explanations to be forgone”).
But it also conveys a certain universality. When I say, for example, “The talks broke down because politics,” I’m not just describing a circumstance. I’m also describing a category. I’m making grand and yet ironized claims, announcing a situation and commenting on that situation at the same time. I’m offering an explanation and rolling my eyes — and I’m able to do it with one little word. Because variety. Because Internet. Because language.
Reblogging. Because linguistics.
This is also really exciting because prepositions are a functional category, which is generally pretty rigid and not prone to expansion. New verbs and nouns and adjectives and adverbs? Sure, all the time. But prepositions?
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?
Language change~! Because kids these days.
Wait…
If I’m remembering my internet history correctly (and please do correct me if I am wrong) this came from the meme “because reasons” which was shorted from “because of reasons” that came from this comichttp://threewordphrase.com/pardonme.htm
Which means we got a new preposition because dirty joke.
Which is wonderful.