I notice you list English as your native language.

This sentence is wrong.

> This sentence is wrong.

This sentence is wrong according to prescriptive grammar rules, but can be found in real-world texts and descriptive dictionaries. Please see:
http://www.theatlantic.com/tech...ternet/281601/
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/because_reasons
http://www.urbandictionary.com/...ecause+reasons

Therefore, the tag '@change' should be deleted.

Despite all that, it sounds very strange to me.

@change deleted, but perhaps a tag should be added indicating that it is not in general use.

Probably the 'Internet slang' tag would do?

> and you'll see people who do use it don't usually use a comma.

The comma made it look even stranger to me. It still looks strange without the comma.

Could I suggest that people contributing non-standard sentences like this add an Annotation about it being "internet slang" etc. This would avoid native speakers like me and others having to add comments about it being wrong etc.

Apparently it is making its way into RL ('real life'), too, among the young, so not Internet slang specifically at this point, but certainly pretty slangy. Tagged accordingly.
The comma is optional and most often not used, that's right...

OK, comma removed. I also accept the slang tag.

Duplicates of this sentence have been deleted:
x #4284694

Slang or not, it's wrong.

> Slang or not, it's wrong.

+1.

James, it sounds awful to our Aussie ears, doesn't it??

<quote>If we're following prescriptive grammar, yes. Otherwise, I think this sentence is quite normal.</unquote>

123xyz, where on earth do you come from? This has nothing to do with prescriptive vs descriptive grammar. The person who wrote it is Chinese (from memory, I checked his/her other sentences and understood this to be the case) and should stick to posting Chinese sentences unless s/he is absolutely sure s/he is contributing a non-erroneous sentence, possibly by checking with a personal source. The sentence is clearly wrong. If you think it's normal, I wonder in what environment you'd consider using it? Perhaps you are Chinese yourself, you certainly don't seem to be a native English speaker, making your comment very strange and out of place.

> The person who wrote it is Chinese (from memory,

James. The author of the sentence, according to his profile, is a native English speaker. That's why I was so surprised at this sentence and couldn't believe a native English speaker would put such a sentence on Tatoeba.

What should have happened, of course, is that the author should have added an annotation about the sentence at the time he put it on. This would have obviated me starting off the debate in the first place.

> If we're following prescriptive grammar, yes. Otherwise, I think this sentence is quite normal.

I agree with you, James, that this sentence is far from normal. I've been speaking English for 65 years and have never heard of it and would never use it in a million years.

I'm really not sure what a sentence like this could teach anyone on Tatoeba who was using the site to learn English.

Chinese? Really?

Note that I only placed one spot in Chinese, and haven't entered a single Chinese sentence. I haven't spoken much Chinese in years - I used to be more fluent in it, but now, I can only keep up a very basic conversation, and I probably use words wrongly.

I admit it might have helped if I had annotated this sentence, but I simply didn't realize that protocol demanded it. And like it or not, it *is* native English slang, not something only used locally in China or Malaysia or elsewhere. It's pretty common on the Internet and among younger speakers, and is attested to by various sources:

http://www.theatlantic.com/tech...ternet/281601/

OK, thanks for posting the Atlantic article, which basically demonstrates that the sentence in question is quirky and novel. I certainly don't regard the sentence as "quite normal", and anyone who said it to me in normal conversation would make me think twice, question their English or make me think they are playing language games with me.

I agree with Pat, that the sentence has little pedagogical value, and could even be misleading for that purpose.

Maybe the author of the question thought this new type of preposition usage sounded quite fun, and decided to add it to Tatoeba for that reason. Anyhow, I'm glad it's attracted our attention and that it's been tagged.

I added this sentence because this pre-existing slang construction is an excellent parallel to Lojban "ki'u zo'e". If I had to render this in "standard" English, it'd come out as something like "because of reasons that I do not care to specify".

How about changing it to something like one of these, which might conceivably, at some time, have been actually uttered by someone:

I hate Tom, for certain reasons.

OR

I hate Tom, for reasons of my own.

> How about changing it to...

I mean, why are you even contemplating the idea of changing it to something? Because reasons, heh?

I get it, it doesn't sound right to most of you, but it does sound correct to at least some native speakers, this expression exists in dictionaries, it was mentioned in the media, so it is absolutely valid. It's already tagged as "slang", so that's that, I believe.

This is perfectly acceptable slang. People say this all the time. It's not wrong, it's in a colloquial register.

I'd never say "I hate Tom because reasons". I would say something like "I've got my reasons for hating Tom". I wouldn't like to think that English learners would think that they could learn a sentence like this, if that's what Totoeba is designed for.

Not all sentences on Tatoeba are applicable in every situation. We have 117 sentences with ‘thou’, 60 with ‘thee’, 78 with ‘thy’, 25 with ‘thine’, 13 with ’thyself’. If you don’t like this sentence, would you suggest deleting those 293 sentences, too? Or would you like to think it’s OK for learners to imitate them?

Sure, we don’t have a good way to distinguish ‘common everyday phrases’ from ‘obscure sentences that you don’t use everyday’. This is a problem. But I don’t think it should be solved by deleting the latter and keeping just the former. I think a better solution is to find a way to mark them to make the navigation easier for learners.

In 2018, this sentence is no longer confined to YouTube and Facebook, but has made its way to the everyday speech of the American youth.

An equivalent would be:
"I hate Tom for some reason (which I can't think of right now, or is just too complicated to explain now...so please give me the benefit of the doubt)."

This is perfectly fine as is. It's just a slangy expression.