On the bus ride home, Miryam and I were fading in and out of conversation. The bus was freezing, we were in the front seat, and, of course, most of our conversations had to be whispered. At one point, I turned to her and let her know something I had just figured out.
"Y'know, you shouldn't start your sentences with, 'because.'"
"Oh, no; I didn't. Did I?"
"Yes," Miryam said. "You did."
This exchange led me to wonder, of course, why it's uncommon after a period of silence for someone to begin a thought with, "because." People don't just sit with their minds blank until they're spoken to again, they sit in thought. I know that my thought processes must be boring to anyone outside of my brain, so I spare them that. It happens though, when I have reached a conclusive idea, that I find myself interested in sharing it. And so I do.
For example, imagine yourself sitting beside me. We talk. We stop talking. Five minutes later, I say, "Because my parents will obviously be taking the camera with them to Israel. What am I going to do then--buy a disposable one?" Do you understand what I mean? Yes. Can you figure out where I'm coming from? Yes. Is it necessary to explain how I've arrived at that statement? Nah, it'd just be superfluous.
To quote rule 17 (under Elementary Principles of Composition) of
The Elements of Style, "Omit needless words." This rule applies both to writing and conversation. As a matter of fact, sometimes I think that my natural ability to eliminate superfluous words, sentences, or sometimes even paragraphs from my speech is what makes me a genius.
When I was younger, my Hebrew teachers were under the impression that I was, perhaps, a super-intelligent being. One year, after noticing that my grades on Ivrit quizzes averaged somewhere in the 20's, my teacher suggested to my parents that they have me tested to assess my learning strengths and weaknesses. I did very well on all the tests but one: the associations test.
The associations test was one in which the tester said a word and I was to tell her what popped into my head. She said, "tree;" I said, "street." She said, "lamp;" I said, "homework." All this wasn't because I didn't
know that the words I should have said were, "leaves" and "light (or desk)," but because I assumed she got that.
My brain upon hearing the word
tree: Trees have leaves which die in the Fall and fall everywhere but are raked when they're on lawns, so really there are only leaves in the street. "Street."
My brain upon hearing the word
lamp: I never use lamps unless I'm at my desk, in which case it'd have to be one of the rare times I'd be doing my homework. "Homework."
And so on and so forth.
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