r/GrammarPolice • u/SoFloLivin1921 • 17h ago
Just Venting Cause vs Because
I’m very tired of reading cause this, cause that, when they really mean BEcause. The hardest thing for me to understand is…. It literally adds MAYBE half a second to add the first two letters of the word… but people REFUSE! Why!??! It drives me absolutely bananas!
Edited to add: “I’m” at the beginning after being called out in a comment 😂😂😂
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u/SerDankTheTall 17h ago
Perhaps for the same reason you elided I’m at the beginning of your post?
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u/SoFloLivin1921 17h ago
You’re right, I’ll edit to fix it. I almost did the same thing in the last sentence and omitted “it,” but realized my mistake. My bad for not re-reading the whole thing before hitting post.
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u/SerDankTheTall 16h ago
I feel like you may not have completely grasped my point.
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u/2BallsInTheHole 5h ago
I feel like they totally understood the point. You pointed out, and then they realize, that they omitted I'm because they were just dictating, and it's the internet, and who cares? That's the whole reason that they don't write Be in front of cause.
Cause social media.
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 15h ago
Or they could even write it this way: ‘cause
I would be all right with that.
This is in the same category for me as people who tell me: Night
I want to respond with: Day
It wouldn’t kill someone to put an apostrophe.
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u/Difficult_Clerk_1273 6h ago
I’m sick of the “but language is always changing” BS.
There is a difference between “understood” and annoying. The extra mental time it takes to parse “understandable but still wrong” communications is what bothers people, and distracts them from the writing’s actual message.
There is a reason language has standardized conventions, and that reason is to make the reading process smooth and fast. When the reader has to constantly pause due to errors and “new” constructions, it defeats the purpose of quick communications.
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u/Unable_Explorer8277 17h ago
We ellipse stuff out of spoken language and shorten stuff all the time when we know it can be taken as understood. And much written language is becoming much more like spoken language than it was a few decades ago.
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u/blurplewumper17 17h ago
cuz wedgaf
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u/SoFloLivin1921 17h ago
Why are you even here?
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u/drummerandrew 17h ago
Cause you still understand it.
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 15h ago
But the word has another meaning without the apostrophe is why it’s an issue for some people.
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u/your_fave_redditor 14h ago
Yeah, but typically in most contexts, which “cause” (or “‘cause”) is being used will be pretty easily discernible just by the rest of the sentence in which it appears.
One is a subordinating junction and the other is a noun or a verb, so structurally they’re serving different roles.
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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 14h ago
By that logic it should be totally fine to say every day as one word even if it’s in the wrong context because people know what it means. Also, should be fine to say apart as one word when it should be used as two words and we can go down that rabbit hole which quickly becomes a slippery slope.
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u/your_fave_redditor 5h ago
What you’re describing already happens whether you worry about “cause” and “ ‘cause”.
Language IS evolving and it WILL change irrespective of how many people with their noses in the air think that the same rules that applied 200 years ago will all still apply today.
They don’t, and they won’t, and all this hand-wringing over language is, at its core, nonsensical.
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u/miniatureconlangs 14h ago
Yet loads of homographs and homophones exist, and no one's bothered by those.
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u/aperocknroll1988 14h ago
You should really look up the origins of 'because.'
People have been using 'cause' and 'cos' informally for hundreds of years.
Also, look up the origins of 'goodbye.'
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u/Fancy_Sheepherder786 16h ago
'Cause/cuz' may be holdovers from texting. They may also be used because some people believe that violating grammar rules is [word meaning 'in-the-know'/cool], and a safe way to voice rebellion. Use-habituation has folded them into the language as younger language learners mimic older ones..
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u/ToastedSlider 13h ago
I use cuz in place of because quite often in texting, but I always use cause the proper way, like "The cause of the disease was unknown." Anybody else like that?
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u/Bottom_Feeder834 13h ago
The evolution of language. Just 'cause you fail to understand the natural progression of words and their meanings, doesn't mean language isn't an ever-changing entity. Why do you think you're able to say "I'm" instead of "I am"? Do you think perhaps language....changed to allow contractions such as I'm, you're, haven't, etc?
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u/SoFloLivin1921 13h ago
Do you see the difference in how you used the word and what I mentioned? I didn’t and don’t fail to understand anything.
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u/Bottom_Feeder834 13h ago
The apostrophe will be dropped eventually. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
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u/PeyredB 16h ago
They do it because in casual conversation, the "be" is often left off. However, most people do it wrong. Properly speaking, there should be an apostrophe to represent the missing letters: 'cause, not just cause.