Because Internet

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE ACCLAIMED NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.

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.

'McCulloch is such a disarming writer - lucid, friendly, unequivocally excited about her subject - that I began to marvel at the flexibility of the online language she describes, with its numerous shades of subtlety.' New York Times

(c) Gretchen McCullock 2019 (P) Penguin Random House LLC 2019

Critics Review

  • Because Internet…illustrates how many of us feel about English in the online age… It is hard not to be moved by her McCulloch is an engaging writer who clearly adores her subject

    Sunday Times

  • Covers the backstory of how tildes became the punctuation mark for ~whimsy and sarcasm~…and when we started repeating certainnnnn lettersssssssss for emphasis

    Buzzfeed

  • A fascinating analysis

    Observer

  • McCulloch offers a compelling snapshot of a world in flux, from which readers will learn a lot about language, the internet and themselves

    Financial Times

  • In prose at once scholarly and user-friendly, McCulloch unpacks the evolution of language in the digital age, providing a comprehensive survey of everything from the secret language of emojis to the appeal of animal memes.

    Esquire

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