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English Has a New Preposition... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4704 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes  Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 25 of 31 21 November 2013 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Or "all the things!" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4773 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 26 of 31 22 November 2013 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||
Slightly less on-topic, but I'm also reminded of a scene in Death Note, where a character asks the protagonist "Why do you keep looking at your watch like that" and he answers "Oh, this? It's... because I'm Kira". I first watched the scene in Japanese with English subs, before I started learning Japanese, but after I had watched lots of other anime and could recognize that the word "dakara" had a meaning close to "because". I didn't know what function the "da" in "dakara" had, so his "Kira dakara" sounded like "Because Kira" to me. I was like "Why did she get so scared of this answer? It could mean anything!" 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 27 of 31 22 November 2013 at 6:48am | IP Logged | ||
I think it expands the language. There's no other way of saying it in a way that carries the same punch. "Because Internet" means not only that the reason is the Internet, but it carries a heavy sense of "that's all there is" and "the explanation stops there". It has a finality and abruptness that are impossible to match with conservative English grammar. Discarding linguistic innovations such as this makes a language poorer and more rigid. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4863 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 28 of 31 22 November 2013 at 10:33am | IP Logged | ||
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This usage of "because" always reminds me of memes and teenagers. I guess we'll have to
wait for a while to see if it survives. On a personal level, I don't feel that saying "because Internet" carries any more power than any other similar expression. But opinions are subjective, so it seems to me rather extreme to call this usage impoverishment or innovation. Time shall tell. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 29 of 31 22 November 2013 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
"Porque" has been in use in Spain in elliptical constructions, which is just a minor step away from its being reinterpreted as a preposition, but "because" has so to say been protected from this use because you would insert "of" - because of this or that. But apparently some language users have decided that the "of" was superfluous and decided to get rid of it, leaving just "because" which then ONLY an be analyzed as a preposition. So far this construction is not part of my English, and I suppose it mainly is used in the spoken language. Or maybe on Twitter and Facebook. When it pops up in my Sci mags or in news broadcasts then I may choose to adopt it, not before. Edited by Iversen on 22 November 2013 at 2:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 30 of 31 22 November 2013 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
I have seen people write "'Cause internet" before. Because Internet, or because cold, or because corruption means that that is the only and sole reason for something. It's quite a clever construction when you think about it. I use it in particular situations, I don't just replace "because of" or "because... + verb". It renders emphasis that the reason is a singularity. Edited by tarvos on 22 November 2013 at 3:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 31 of 31 02 January 2014 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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"but" is also becoming a preposition.
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