Because Internet

As fun as Ms McCullochs podcast; enlightening and perfect for a lay reader interested in language use.

I'm exactly the extremely-online sort of nerd this book is meant for and I absolutely loved it. It's full of interesting information and extremely well paced -- an absolute pleasure to read. The author clearly cares a lot about getting ideas across succinctly, but also playfully.The printing on the other hand -- hoo boy. I've never seen anything like it. There are pages where the top half is on a separate piece of paper than the bottom half! Not just a couple pages either, it's everywhere! These are all aesthetic problems though, and it was dirt cheap to buy, so I really don't care.

Such a fun read! Gretchen is always entertaining and clear. This book is kind of that teacher that teaches you something while acknowledging you also know things and have valuable insight to give. A great asset either you are a full internet person or someone that barely uses email.

Fascinating - as a companion on this rather recondite journey, Gretchen McCulloch is all one could wish for. This is beautifully written, engaging, impressive and good-humoured book, equally engrossing from a linguistic and from an internet perspective. For an early web adopter like myself, there are some wonderful nostalgia trips as well as nuggets of previously unknown detail, and quirky, sideways insights. This is one of those books one is genuinely sorry to finish - a geek's delight!

In "Because Internet", Gretchen effortless explains the evolution of informal, written language on the internet, and the social context in which certain "dialects" of internet writing originated. Some of her descriptions—such as what I'm calling "boomer ellipses"—left my jaw on the floor, while I was flipping through this book endlessly on my commute home. The book is written in a semi-formal, disarming way, like a friend telling you an exciting story. With myriad examples and topics covered in the book, even the index is fun to read. Seriously! Read this book's index!So, if you have ever wondered about whether a period at the end of a sentence is passive-aggressive or not, if you're wondering why emoji skyrocketed in popularity, if you've ever stressed about how to start an email message, this is the book for you.