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I have seen the word "cause" in many music lyrics and usually is pronounced "kez". I curious what does this word mean?

For example, here is a part of Taylor Swift's Bad Blood lyrics:

Cause baby, now we've got bad blood.

Or a part of Linked Park's Final Masqurade lyrics:

Tearing me apart with words you wouldn't say,
And suddenly tomorrow's a moment washed away.
'Cause I don't have a reason, and you don't have the time,
But we both keep on waiting for something we won't find.

StoneyB on hiatus
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frogatto
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2 Answers2

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It is an abbreviation of "because".

Yohann V.
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  • In my opinion, Because baby, now we've got bad blood. doesn't make sense. Does? – frogatto May 19 '15 at 07:17
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    @adforce Actually, it does make sense. "'Cause baby, now we've got bad blood. You know it used to be mad love" -- That means that they used to be madly in love, but it's not like that anymore (because now they've got bad blood). – Damkerng T. May 19 '15 at 07:20
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    @DamkerngT. Oh it now makes sense! thanks. But I've another question about this sentence: That "we've got" shouldn't be "we've gotten"? – frogatto May 19 '15 at 07:26
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    @abforce In American English, "We've got ..." means "We have". If you said "We've gotten ...", it would mean "We've received ..." -- (BTW, I'm sorry that I misspelled your name in the previous comment!) – Damkerng T. May 19 '15 at 07:30
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As Yohann has kindly explained, 'cause is short for because.

There are just a few more details I think you should know:

  1. 'cause is usually spelled with an apostrophe. The apostrophe indicates that letters have been left out, which lets readers know it's not the same word as cause. If you don't use an apostrophe, you might confuse people! (Of course, not everyone follows this convention, but I recommend doing so yourself.)

  2. 'cause isn't limited to lyrics―it appears in all sorts of informal speech! It isn't used much in writing unless you're trying to making your writing resemble informal speech. For example, you might see it in dialogue or informal online chat.

  3. 'cause generally isn't used in formal English, whether it's written or spoken.

  4. 'cause is sometimes spelled cuz in informal chat. This is an example of "eye dialect", and is supposed to represent its pronunciation /kʌz/. It's not a proper spelling, but you should be able to recognize it if you ever come across it.

  • Thanks for your answer, It's very goods notes. But I wonder why your answer has been downvoted. – frogatto May 21 '15 at 20:29
  • @abforce I've double-checked to see if there are any mistakes, but I don't believe there are. Anyway, don't worry about the votes―I think Yohann's answer is great, and I upvoted it. I just wanted to expand on the comment I left earlier, and I couldn't fit it all in a comment, so I wrote my own answer :-) –  May 21 '15 at 20:31
  • I down-voted it. I down-voted it because the only thing it contributes is unimportant details. It makes the overall question a bit harder to consume for casual readers. – Sam I am says Reinstate Monica May 21 '15 at 21:54
  • Glad to participate ;) – Yohann V. May 21 '15 at 22:44
  • In lyrics, I've also seen it written 'cos [e.g. I think that's the spelling on the Les Misérables lyric sheet for the line "I came out here 'cos I was told to"]. I suspect it is written in such fashion to indicate how it should be sung; had the lyric been "I'm serving the cause I was told to", the words "cause I" would be on the same notes, but the noun "cause" should have greater emphasis on both the vowel and final consonant than "'cos" as a conjunction. – supercat May 22 '15 at 16:54
  • I really like wiktionary and in the link I provided you can see common abreviations. – Yohann V. Oct 07 '16 at 07:12