A trivium from the Web: because kidding?

[Wilson Gray]

On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 11:20 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> Probably not mockery; that's our Word of the Year you're talking, because
> duh
> (
> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/because-wins-2013-word-of-the-year-vote-because-awesome/
> )
>

"I'm hip," to coin a phrase. It just struck me that the writer was someone
well aware of the usage and was making sport of it. Because "because"
introduces a reason, the redundancy of "because, like, reason" - only
trivially distinct from "because, like, because," IMO - strikes me as a
real thigh-slapper, a jocular use of the structure and not a serious one
like, e.g. "because, you know, the lack of a sense of humor." ;-)


--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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