Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch (PDF)

Description

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who’s ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It’s the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that’s a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity’s most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What’s more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer “LOL” or “lol,” why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The person who OK’d the layout of this book did the author a huge disservice. How can a book about the way the internet is changing language, communication, etc., completely ignore the use of white space, subheads/crossheads and the like?Color me shallow, but this book broke the first rule of Internet writing, “Don’t make me work.”Because Internet offers page after page after page of dense paragraphs. Don’t get me wrong; I love me some New Yorker. But at least there you have copy in columns and the occasional gut-splitting cartoon.I can’t really speak to the content of Because Internet. I got about 10 pages in before calling “No mas.”For better or worse, the eye of the modern reader can take only so much uninterrupted prose. Yes, a paperback book is not a phone or laptop screen. But given the subject matter, shouldn’t someone have anticipated reader expectations and tailored the layout accordingly?Yes, Because Internet is a Times best-seller. A more telling stat would be how many of those buyers actually read the book. Publishers get paid to package and move product. That includes helping the author present their content in the most accessible way possible. McCulloch deserved better.

⭐My daughter became hooked on linguistics from a high school elective. She pointed me to the Lingthusiasm podcast, which I also like. This book is written in typical “popular science” approach explaining Dr McCulloch’s study of the language of the internet. She not only explains the linguistic conventions – study language as used, not as defined in a formal setting, capture how language evolves, and categorize the changing norms – but she shows how informal text-based communication has opened a trove of real-world examples that linguists cannot replicate for the 1850’s or the 1930’s.

I’m an “old internet” person in Dr McCullogh’s classification. I was using dial-up BBS computers a couple years before I got on Compuserve. All this is five years before America Online even came into existence. I tried Prodigy and AOL, both, and I was getting web-pages delivered by email thanks to a server that DEC set up – email and address, their computer would download the page, and their computer emailed it to me as a series of attachments. I could load the locally-stored web page into Mosaic to read what was on that page.

Dr McCulloch explains how my experience, habits, and writing vary from that of my daughter, an internet native. I strongly recommend this book.

⭐As a writer and editor, I’m totally fascinated by how people write and speak. So when I saw this book announced in Publishers Weekly, I knew I wanted to read it. And it didn’t disappoint.Gretchen McCullough has put together a well-researched and thorough tour of the internet’s impact on how we communicate. While these changes have been swift and dramatic, what this book shows is that these types of linguistic changes are not unique to the internet age. Technology and social norms have been influencing how we communicate since the beginning of humankind.The internet history packed into this book is well-documented. Those who have lived through the dawn of the computer age in the latter half of the 20th century will especially appreciate this look back at how we got to where we are linguistically.Though grammar nerds will wince at some of the conventions that the internet has abolished, if you’re a student of language history, you’ll find it a worthy read.

⭐This is a much needed book. As someone with a Masters degree in English Lit and who is also an avid gamer who spends a lot of time on Discord with people of all ages, I had been seeking an analysis of internet speech. It’s a fascinating subject, well explored in this book, from its earliest uses to present day (as of its publication) online speech norms.I recommend reading it. However, I had to remove a star because the author seems to suggest that standard writing is not just “elitist” but unnecessary. This is like “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” Both informal writing and standard, formal writing have their places imo.That said, read it and see what you think!

⭐Gretchen McCulloch writes like her topic is her passion and joy. Because Internet. . . was a fun, informative read. I have listened to podcasts about linguistics and found them right up my alley. Reading this was even more fun, because I could find myself in it (Full Internet Person) and read things over as needed/wanted. I kept sharing bits with my husband that I knew he would identify with as well.

⭐I disliked the fact that anything you read in this book, you would already know from a wikipedia article or if you took a college linguistics class. There’s nothing new here except her discourse on gestures & she doesn’t even go into detail about it. Her whole discourse was completely unorganised too.

⭐McCulloch breaks down the current state of the quickly evolving ways of expressing ourselves through written communication online — with plenty of history about how we got here. As someone who has been online a very long time, I did find it curious which phenomenon she went in greater depth upon and which she slyly mentions with a wink but doesn’t follow up on with a full history or explanation. As it stands, I feel like it was very much written for me and folks like me! However, I feel like the sly winks may be lost or just confusing for folks without the same experience of full internet immersion over the years, which causes me to hesitate into recommending it to Less Online people.

⭐A fascinating look at how the internet uses language and why we text the way we do. Definitely falls in to the pop science category but as I am not an academic linguist, it was perfect for me. I loved the way it talked about the history of language on the internet and also used examples from the internet to illustrate concepts from linguistics. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to give themselves a case of the “Didja knows.”

⭐I find this quite hard to review. As someone whose degree is languages and day job is tech, I’ve loved Gretchen’s Twitter and blogs and excitedly had this book on pre-order since the first day it was available.I found it really, really interesting, at many points I texted friends with interesting things I’d found, and things I’d forgotten about from the usage of internet past (I’d totally forgotten o.O ever used to be a thing). I’ll probably be handing this book out and passing it around friends.However I couldn’t help feel that there was just something missing. I found the book quite easy to put down and forget to pick up again, despite the fact I started reading it within ten minutes on day one that I received it, it took me three days to finish. I’m definitely going to be excitedly handing it out to friends, but I have a gut nervousness I can’t quite place that worries that they just won’t like it.Overall, I’m really glad I read it and I’m not disappointed. I can definitely imagine myself rereading it, especially in a few years to look back at how it aged. Perhaps it’s just a victim of my own overhyped expectations?

⭐This is the first book I have ever preordered, and it did not disappoint. Gretchen McCulloch is the only linguist I have ever read who describes internet language from the perspective of an insider who actually uses and understands it. It’s clear that she is really embedded in internet culture and analyses the way real people communicate online – unlike some writers who just describe what they think ‘kids these days’ are probably doing with emojis behind their backs.I would recommend this read to anyone who ever uses the internet to communicate. If you socialise heavily online, you’ll enjoy recognising patterns of communication that you really use, and seeing them carefully explained and analysed. If you don’t, you’ll get a better understanding of how other people are benefitting from the internet, and of what their idiosyncratic online communication really means.

⭐When I grew up, the Internet was regularly chastised by ‘serious’ people for bringing about the death of grammar. That was obviously nonsense, and this book provides a robust and comprehensive explanation of how language has developed as a result of the web. The author clearly understands online culture, and gives interesting examples to illustrate the easily accessible and natural narrative. It has made me want to learn more.

⭐Really enjoyed this – accessible to me as a non-linguist and often very funny read that made me think too.

⭐This was to give as a present so I really know little about it. It was, however, received with pleasure.

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