The New, Delightful Use of Because

The headline over a recent article (Nov. 19, 2013) by Megan Garber in The Atlanticannounces,

“English Has a New Preposition.”

The subhead expresses implied approval: Linguists are recognizing the delightful evolution of the word “because.”

Linguists may be recognizing the jocular elliptical use of because as a “delightful evolution,” but I have my suspicions that grammarians are less than enthusiastic.

The word because is used to introduce reasons. As a subordinating conjunction, its job is to join a subordinate adverbial clause to a main clause:

Mr. Wilson will not be at the awards ceremony because he has broken his leg.

Because the weather is frightful, the annual homecoming parade has been cancelled.

The phrase “because of” introduces a noun phrase or a gerund:

Because of the lateness of the hour, we decided not to stop for coffee.

Because of running late, we skipped our usual stop at the coffee shop.

A previously existing elliptical use of because is often heard in conversation, as in this example from the OED entry:

Why didn’t you leave the bottle?’ ‘Because!’ I said shortly. I wasn’t going to explain my feelings on the matter.

Linguists have dubbed the “new” use of because the “because noun” or the because+noun.” The most popular speculation about its origin is that it began as a recurring joke on Saturday Night Live.

Neal Whitman gives this example from SNL in an article called ‘Because as a Preposition”:

If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.

SNL fans adopted the joke with such variations as “If life gives you lemons, keep them, because, hey, free lemons.”

Whitman explains the evolution from the “hey” construction to the “because noun” construction:

Before the “hey,” we have a regular English sentence. After the “hey,” we have an extremely condensed and abbreviated thought, represented by just a noun phrase. The humor in the “free dummy” and “free lemons” sentences comes from the speaker’s assumption that all he or she needs to say is “free dummy” or “free lemons,” and naturally you, the listener can fill in all the rest. A free dummy? Heck, yeah, who wouldn’t want a free dummy? Doesn’t everybody want one? 

He points out that in the 2000s, the “because-hey” construction became popular in Internet memes. Eventually the hey dropped out, leaving only thebecause.

I think that long before the internet intruded into our lives, the “preposition+noun” construction could be overheard in millions of homes:

Child: Can I stay up a little longer?
Mother: No.
Child: Why?
Mother: Because.
Child: Because why?
Mother: Because, Bedtime!

Whatever its origin, the “because+noun” is in wide use in the speech of young speakers. It certainly suits the spirit of the times, with its laconic, sarcastic, and irreverent tone. And, in these grammar-challenged times, it’s extremely useful, relieving one of the labor of completing a thought.

The because+noun may become a feature of the language, but for the present, it is a nonstandard elliptical construction that doesn’t belong in formal writing.

Come With

“I’m going to the movies. Do you want to come with?”

A reader in England has noticed that this elliptical use of “come with” on British television and doesn’t care for it:

I find it to be an expression I prefer not to use, as it sounds grammatically wrong and very odd, even though, were I in Germany, I would automatically and happily use the equivalent expression “Kommen sie mit”. Do you know the age of the English “Come with”?

There is an example in the OED of a 19th century elliptical use of with without an object:

in slang use, in reference to liquor means mixed with sugar, having sugar added; usually in phrases hot or cold with.
1836   Dickens Sketches by Boz 1st Ser. I. 84   Two glasses of rum-and-water ‘warm with—’.
1843   R. S. Surtees Handley Cross I. x. 202   Fatch me up a glass of cold sherry negus with.
1843   R. S. Surtees Handley Cross I. xv. 322   ‘Take a glass of brandy,’ said she… ‘hot with? or cold without?’

Where did the modern usage originate?

The reader’s mention of German “Kommen sie mit,” points to the answer. Large numbers of German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Dutch immigrants to the U.S. settled in the midwest, near the Great Lakes. “Kommen sie mit” migrated into the local English dialect.

English is, after all, a Germanic language. Old English mid, meaning “with,” survived into Middle English and was sometimes spelled mit.

Many American speakers dislike the usage as well:

Why do people say, “Can I come with” and “Do you want to go with”? That “with” hanging on the end of the sentence has always driven me crazy.

That reaction seems a bit extreme. My Chicago relations say it. I find it odd, but endearing. It is, however, a regionalism that has not acquired the status of standard English.

Et cetera, Re, and Sic

When the Latin-loving educated classes finally started taking English seriously enough to write their works in, they brought a lot of Latin terms with them. Some of the terms remain in the language, among them et cetera, re, and sic.

Et cetera
Commonly abbreviated etc., the Latin phrase et cetera is used at the end of a list to indicate things in addition to those already enumerated: When you go shopping, be sure to buy such staples as flour, rice, sugar, etc. In older texts, you may see it abbreviated as &c. The symbol &, called the ampersand, originated as a ligature for the Latin word et (and).

Note: In writing and printing, a ligature is two or more letters joined together to form one character, like the letters e+t.

Etc. is frequently misspelled as “ect” and mispronounced as [ek setera]. These errors can be avoided by noting that the first part of the phrase is et, not “ek.” The exact translation of et cetera is “and the others: et=and,cetera=the others.

Re:
Another Latin word commonly used in English is re. The Latin phrase “in re” means “in the matter of,” or “concerning.” Traditionally, the word has been written at the top of a letter, either in all caps or with an uppercase R and a lowercase e, followed by a colon:

RE:
Re:

Until recently, Re: was understood as a way to announce the subject of the message to follow:

Re: Your letter of May12, 2014

As is the case with many formerly familiar Latin expressions in English, the meaning of Re: has become blurred, and its use is shifting. Many web users believe that it is an abbreviation for regarding. Others use it in email subjects to mean “Reply.”

Sic
The Latin word sic in square brackets after a word in quoted material means that something in the quotation is in error. The writer quoting the material inserts [sic] to indicate that the misspelled word or inaccurate fact occurs in the original:

The most usual use of [sic] familiar to the general reader is its use to signal a misspelled or word: According to the document, “Every store on Main Street has the responsibility to provide it’s [sic] own parking.”

{Sic] is also used to signal an error of fact. For example:

Simpson says, “In Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, that the young Arthur draws Excalibur [sic] from the stone and is recognized as the rightful king.”

The error being flagged by [sic] does not point to a misspelling; it has to do with the fact that in Malory, the sword drawn from the stone is not Excalibur. Arthur obtains Excalibur much later, from the Lady of the Lake.

Oblivious to or of?

A reader wonders why, “In modern usage, we hear…‘oblivious to’ more than we hear the correct usage.”

Writing about oblivious in 1926, H. W. Fowler felt that the word was “badly misused”:

1. Its right sense is no longer aware or no longer mindful; it is not simply unaware orunconscious or insensible.

2. Even when the word might bear its true sense of forgetful(as opposed to unaware), it is often followed by the wrong preposition (to). —Modern English Usage

Both of Fowler’s objections have been invalidated by time. Although oblivious is still used in the sense of forgetfulness, its usual sense nowadays is “unaware or unconscious of,” and either of or to is acceptable to use with it.

Some SAT preparation sites list of as the only option with oblivious, but others indicate that either of or to is acceptable. (The SAT is a battery of tests taken by high school students who intend to apply to university.)

The earliest documentation in the OED of the use of “oblivious to” in the sense of unaware is dated 1854: “The anti-reformer in Ireland is just as oblivious to the existence or the curability of evils there.”

Oblivious can be used without a preposition:

He’s the most oblivious man I’ve ever met.
Women Have a Sixth Sense, Men Are Oblivious

In cryptology, an “oblivious transfer protocol” is “a type of protocol in which a sender transfers one of potentially many pieces of information to a receiver, but remains oblivious as to what piece (if any) has been transferred.” Hereoblivious means unaware.

In computing, there is something called a “cache-oblivious algorithm.” I’ve no intention of trying to explain that one.

Fowler concluded his entry on oblivious by suggesting that speakers could avoid problems by choosing a more common word to begin with:

The making of these mistakes is part of the price paid by those who reject the homely word, avoid the obvious, and look about for the imposing: forgetful, unaware, unconscious, unmindful, and insensible, while they usually give the meaning more precisely, lay no traps.