Dialect group’s word of the year: Because. Because oh brother.

The American Dialect Society has named “because” its word of the year for 2013. What makes because special is its evolving usage. Where once “because” needed to be followed by “of” or a full clause, now it can be followed by a noun or other fragment.

“Now one often sees tersely worded rationales like ‘because science’ or ‘because reasons.’ You might not go to a party ‘because tired.’ Ben Zimmer, chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society, said in a release. “As one supporter put it, because should be Word of the Year ‘because useful!’”

The organization allows that any “vocabulary item” can be its word of the year. Previous winners include “#hashtag” in 2012, “occupy” in 2011, “app” in 2010, “bailout” in 2008, “subprime” in 2007, “truthiness” in 2005, “metrosexual” in 2003, and “chad” in 2000. In 2009, “tweet” was word of the year and “google” named word of the decade.

The 2013 winner “because” beat out “selfie,” which was dubbed word of the year by the Oxford Dictionaries. Other near-winners included “Obamacare” and “twerk.”

“Twerk” didn’t win. Because thank goodness.

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