Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

Linguists seem to fall into 2 categories: Prescriptivists, who can overdo it and become grammar nazis, and Descriptivists, who just describe how people communicate, no matter how much it seems to presage the end of the world. This might have been an interesting topic for a book, though instead, it's a padded-out compilation, based on "soft" statistics, often based on hearsay evidence, on how the time one adopted internet use may alter how one writes. When the author implied that Shakespeare might have done better with emojis, I kind of lost it. One of the few books I just didn't have sufficient masochism to finish. If you're over 30 and literate, you already know most of this stuff; if you're under 30, your lips might get tired reading it.

Looks like a good book, but I can't read it with the Kindle app on my iPhone or iPad. I can read it on my Kindle device and my MacBook. Any idea what the problem is?

I'm pleased to update my previous review and let everyone know that Amazon fixed the crashing problem with this book on iOS Kindle readers. I called them and stayed on the phone with their rep quite a while, and they fixed the problem while I was talking to them. It then automatically downloaded the fixed version to my iPad and it opened without crashing. (Thanks, Alphonso!)

Gretchen McCulloch is the real deal: a trained linguist whose knowledge is deep *and* wide-ranging. She's a keen appreciator of contemporary culture and the central role language plays in our world, and sets out to explain how internet language came into being, and has now reached every corner of communication. (Like her, I welcome our internet language overlords.) Her understanding of the fluidity of language in an internet era is refreshing and celebratory. "Because Internet" is a guide for everyone: digital natives and the digitally baffled, and everyone else who uses, wants to use, or needs to decipher, memes, emojis, excessive punctuation and lolz.A great book for writers, readers, internet historians and language enthusiasts!

I’m a fan of the author’s podcast so I preordered the heck out of this, and it did not disappoint. I’m a language person—a professional editor and amateur linguistics nerd—and I love McCulloch’s analysis on that level. I’m also a Full Internet Person who spends a lot of time on social media and in group texts with friends, and it’s just amazing to see the language norms I use in my everyday life reflected on the page—and in humorous, extremely readable form. Going to be quoting this at everyone forever; sorry, friends!

I started reading this with the high hopes that I, as a 79 year old, could gain an understanding of the jargon we see so often these days. I managed to get through the first half of the book, and learned a few things (e.g the difference between lol and LOL) but got bogged down as the book became more esoteric. The chapter on "Emotional Typography" finished me off. Maybe I am just an old dog who can't learn new tricks, but really, wtf!

I have read hundreds of kindles on my iphone. This was the first book where every time I tried to open it, it just closed the book each time. There is some sort of defect which should be corrected.

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.  I can’t open this book on my kindle app on iPhone +. Everything is updated. I was really looking forward to this book.

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?

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.

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.

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

My fiancee really liked it, although I've not read it yet, the bits she has read to me were great!