Hello again! The word nerd is back to quickly tell you that the English language is steadily acquiring a new preposition, because English. Yup, linguists are starting to identify that a new use for the word ‘because’ is steadily evolving, mainly thanks to the wonders of the internet.
The word ‘because’ is traditionally a subordinate conjunction, which simply means that it joins two sentences where one explains or justifies the other. Examples include “I didn’t go to the party because there was a game on” or “I couldn’t go outside because of the weather”. The two clauses in the first example are “I didn’t go to the party” and “There was a game on”. The wonderful ‘because’ joins these two together to inform the reader that one was caused by the other (Or should I say ‘claused’! Haha… That joke was terrible).
But the wonderful users of the English language decided we could do one better. Why do we put useless words like ‘of’ in there? Nope, this could be changed, and thereafter we get examples like “I didn’t go to the party because football” and “I couldn’t go outside because weather”. More popular uses include the ever-used “because science”, and some might recall the internet meme “because race car”. If you don’t know about that last one, you can educate yourself (procrastinate) here.
Linguists, though, are looking at what they have imaginatively termed the ‘because preposition’ as a legitimate contender for future use. Using the ‘because preposition’ often denotes an apathy around the explanation, or suggests an implicit understanding that shouldn’t warrant explanation. It’s also used in a variety of ways.
If you’re more interested in the development of this preposition, a few wonderful people have written excellent explanations and examinations of the development. Have two links, because information:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/because-as-a-preposition
All that said, this use of ‘because’ still isn’t correct in formal English, so don’t go writing it in any essays. Your lecturers will chuckle briefly, then mark it up with red pen. And blame me.
P.S. It’s worth mentioning that, once I spoke about this to the gang up here, every conversation started being concluded with the line “because <conversation topic>”. So maybe don’t tell everyone this. Maybe I shouldn’t even have posted this. Oh well. Too late.