... offers a history of the web, an introduction to linguistics and a survey of the most fascinating research from [McCulloch's] field ... For those well versed in the ways of the web, Because Internet will offer insight into how we are, often unwittingly, signaling our identity through the language we use online each day. For those who aren’t familiar with lolcats, the book can serve as something of a guide. The only audience McCulloch doesn’t cater to are the gripers who believe English is a precious urn to be maintained rather than, as she puts it, a splendidly 'living, moving' thing.
...McCulloch dives deep into the portal, and she returns with a bevy of cutesy sarcastic asides and chatty, linguist-next-door remarks ready-made for readers to repeat at a party. It all amounts to a digestible introduction for those with minimal literacy in internet culture or linguistics ... McCulloch tells us where our current use of language has got us to—her book is 'a snapshot of a particular era and a lens that we can use to look at future changes.' But how it makes us feel, and what it’s doing to us, that may be a story for another language.
With Because Internet, [McCullough] has written an incisive and entertaining guidebook of her own ... McCulloch is remarkably good at showing how internet speech has been evolving 'to restore our bodies to our writing,' as certain online conventions have changed over time ... 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 ... Reflecting on these changes in 'expressive typography,' McCulloch is fully celebratory ... She’s immersed in online life, where she sees the future looking emancipatory and bright. 'There’s space, in this glorious linguistic web, for you,' she insists. I hope she’s right lol.
