Grammar girl here, this week Neil Whitman is going to tell us about an interesting way

to use the word because.

In standard English, the word because can be used two ways.

One of them is to introduce a clause, as in, our twerk was late because he was waiting

for the repairman to show up.

Used this way because is a subordinating conjunction.

The other is to team up with OV to form what's called a compound preposition.

For example, our twerk was late because of heavy traffic.

In the past three or four years though, a new usage for because has been developing.

So what is this new way of using the word because?

Listen to these quotations from an article in Slate this past summer in which young children

were asked to choose their favorite Pixar movie.

A five-year-old chose Toy Story 2, quote, because evil emperor Zurg, a four-year-old liked

monster's ink, quote, because the daycare.

A six-year-old chose monster's university, quote, because the part where Sully has the

big roar and scares all the policemen.

The new use of because treats it as an ordinary preposition by having it introduce noun phrases

instead of clauses, or the word of.

I've also heard teenagers say things like, I'll do that when school's out because more

time.

This construction got a name just last year.

In July 2012, two linguists independently decided to call it because noun.

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