Because Causes

Speranza

From World Wide Words:

"Words of 2013."

"The American Dialect Society continued its tradition of voting for its 
Word of the Year at its annual conference, held this year in Minneapolis."

"The winner was a curious choice:

"because X," where

"X" is a noun or noun phrase *without* the intermediate of that would be 
expected in _standard_ English."

Examples:

“because homework”, “because internet”.

Speranza's examples:

"Because Implicature"
"Because Grice".

"In such phrases, most often encountered online, "because" has changed" -- 
as Grice would say -- "from a conjunction to a preposition"

thus complicating what Grice calls its logical form.

"It may suggest [or implicate -- Speranza] the logic behind the reasoning 
is too poor to survive exposure or the reason is so obvious the speaker [or 
utterer, as Grice prefers -- Speranza] doesn’t need to elaborate."

""The version found most often is

"because reasons,"

a hand-waving way of saying that the speaker [or utterer -- Speranza]  doesn
’t want or need to explain."

It may be that the Griceian conversational maxim is alleged to be 'under 
control': "do not say what you lack adequate reasons for".

""Because X "had also been chosen as "Most Useful Word of the Year" [where 
the implicature is not Witters's -- 'meaning is use', meaning should be
useful  -- Speranza], beating "struggle bus", a difficult situation, as in

"I’m riding the struggle bus"."

But cf. Speranza's

"Because Struggle Bus".

"It is likely that journalists will have a struggle bus telling their 
readers why because X won (try “because language”, guys)."

Cheers

Speranza

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2014.
http://www.worldwidewords.org.

There is an appendix to the item in today's World Wide Words.

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2014.
http://www.worldwidewords.org.

Quinion writes:

"The choice of "because X" as the Word of the Year by the American Dialect 
Society has led to much confused comment."

"As an example of the grammatical difficulties accompanying this word, as 
much in its conventional usages as the new one, see Professor Geoffrey Pullum
’s  mind-stretching discussion on Language Log."

"Pullum says that dictionaries wrongly call "because" a conjunction  “
because they are all lazy followers of a stupid tradition that has needed 
rethinking for 200 years.”"

"Pullum argues that the word is a preposition."

"You may find it hard work following him, but the destination is worth the 
journey."

"If you would like a different view, pop over to Gretchen McCulloch’s blog 
All Things Linguistic, in which she argues the opposite view, that because
in  the new construction isn’t a preposition."

----

Grice discusses

p because of p.

Or

p; therefore, p.

In general, it is related to reasons:

"The reason why the bridge collapsed was that it was made of cellophane." 
(His example in Aspects of Reason).

"Because" is of course a Latinism.

The proper Anglo-Saxon (almost expletive?) is 'for':

"I did it for I did it".

"I went to bed for I was tired."

And so on.

I don't think Strawson discusses "because" in "Introduction to Logical 
Theory". He SHOULD. In that case, Grice would have criticised him. There are 
various possibilities for the formalisation of 'because' in logical theory,
or  for the 'logical form' (to use an idiom favourite with Witters) of
"because"  utterances.

And as a corollary, this may lead to the logical form of this alleged new 
usage (not to Geary) of 'because' that Quinion is referring to.

Or not.

Quinion:

""The version found most often is

"because reasons" [...]."

I propose it should be:

"because causes"?

Quinion:

""The version found most often is

"because reasons,"

a hand-waving way of saying that the speaker [or utterer -- Speranza]  
doesn’t want or need to explain."

"Because causes" sounds more to the (or at least my) point.

Cf.

What I did for love.

What I did because love.

Cheers,

Speranza