I’d really hoped we were over the “media discovers people talk funny for humor purposes” stage of the internet.
Next on Boing Boing: LOL Cats combine adorable cats with comically misspelled captions. Get an insider’s look at this new phenomenon!
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Hundreds of the DoD’s top codebreakers could work round the clock to decipher what you just said and never figure it out. Are you proud?
/Sarcastic Rant
It would be unfortunate if it did. Not because I’m a purist defender of the existence of ‘of’; but because it has a very different flavor to it. “Because of” statements (even if wrong, because the speaker is misinformed, stupid, etc.) have a certain literal earnestness to them (unless employed in a context that makes the sarcasm, irony, whatever, apparent). “Because” statements do not have that same literal quality.
We don’t feed the bears because of the risks of habituating dangerous animals to associate humans with food.
Abraham Lincoln’s steed in the below image is of the species it is because bears.
It’s always a bit sad when nominally synonymous bits of vocabulary that have different flavors and subtle mental textures to them are folded into interchangeability. The ‘zOMG, English is the mostest wordy language!’ nonsense is nonsense; but we sure do have a lot, and they carry affective shades, none quite like another.
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The young’uns today have intentionally put language deformation into overdrive. I suppose, in a way, the practice itself is like a meta-meme. In addition to “because reasons” there is “feels” and “I accidentally the sidewalk” etc. It’s a kind of language sport for the already over-mediated.
Kids these days, I tell you.(first edition is actually 1785, there is also an 1811 version, possibly others.)
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I didn’t mean to imply that slang was just invented, but the Internet was. It’s the pace and reach that has increased so dramatically. And net forums provide the geographically-unbound arena for the sport.
Meh. Always new flavours with language. That’s the beauty of its evolution.
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Because because.
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To me, the “because THING” usage carries an implication that the stated logic is as broken as the grammar.
In some cases it’s to point out some BS going on (“the US government was shut down because Freedom” or whatever), and in others it’s to explain something that doesn’t make objective sense but the person feels it’s worth it for its own sake (“we are watching Netflix for the next 48 hours because Breaking Bad.”)
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New language is new becuase teh internets.
Prescriptivists want to say how language should be used, descriptivists describe how it is actually used.
“Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle” is a quote from Shakespeare’s Richard II - the Duke of York is objecting to being called “my gracious uncle” by someone who has just invaded England. As far as we know, “uncle” was never used before as a verb, but that’s OK, because Shakespeare.
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Yeah, it serves as “writing” on the Gawker sites these days.
Thanks, I honestly appreciate the sincere clarification as an answer to my sarcastic question.
I did understand everything up to “uncle me no uncle”, which is where I got lost. I can’t say I’ve read all of Shakespeare, but having read a few of the plays, it seems like a linguistic convention he would’ve invented.
Absolutely. Outside this thread, I’ve never seen anyone use this construction in any other way. It’s not a contraction, it’s a joke, most often self-deprecating, about irrationality. The most common usage I’ve seen of it is as a reaction to some picture or description of something that has some idiosyncratic appeal, but no practical use: “I need this because reasons.”
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"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”
(Socrates)
Damn kids.
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Bqwhatever
Oh great. When your parents think it’s cool, it’s so over.
Obligatory, because XKCD
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The internet also has new punctuation rules. Because. Periods.
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I think there are two different parallel uses. One is to say “you know what I mean, that whole situation that I don’t need to detail” with a hint of eyeroll. For example, I just had a conversation about some ongoing mess at my agency, but we didn’t need to talk about what was behind it. “Because Congress” refers to all the problems with their governance.
I think that “Because reasons” is used more to comment on someone who make a rule or assertion based on a bunch of bogus factors. They say those are the reasons, but we think that is blah-blah justifying something they wanted to do anyway. It’s like “TL;DR”, but referring to a third party. For example, yesterday I had a conversation about something unreasonable a boss wanted us to do. We didn’t believe he’d made the decision based on the things he told us; he just wanted it. “Why do we have to do this?” “Because … reasons.”
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