The reason is because ～

'The reason is because ~' is said to be ungrammatical. One of the reasons is that the verb there is a link-verb which links a verb and a complement, and in this case the complement should be a noun-clause preceded by 'that'. However, the construction is widely accepted unless you are writing formal documents.

You are quite right. I think 'the reason is because ~' is not so a bad construction, though OED gives no quote for the usage of this construct.

Does this apply to 'it is because ~' or 'that is because ~'?

I think they are acceptable even in formal English. OED gives 77 quotes for the former and 7 for the latter.

paco

The objection only applies when the specific word "reason" (a near synonym for "cause") is used with "because". It is not the verb "is" (or any form of "to be") which is the problem here.

Continuing with the idea that "reason" often means "cause" and that "because" means "from the cause that", we see that "the reason is because" means "the cause is from the cause that".

Approaching it from the reverse direction, i.e., considering "because" to mean "for the reason that", we see that "the reason is because" means "the reason is for the reason that".

From the observations above it should be fairly obvious that the sequence "the reason is because" is actually quite nonsensical. It purports to give a reason for a reason! It is not a reason you want to explain the cause of, but (presumably) some event you want to explain the cause of.

If I'm not mistaken, this is what is called a "category-mistake". Others are "The temperature is hot" and "Prices are expensive".

CJ

Yes. I see. Well, maybe we ought to start a new thread on the uses of "to be", especially in the non-equative senses.

Hello Infinity.

The problem is where you are from.
The point is how you do it.

The "where"-clause and "how"-clause here are noun clauses meaning a place and a manner respectively. So they belong to constructs of "NP is NP".

"Because"- clauses can't be taken to be a noun clause, because "because" etymologically comes from "by cause ". That is our problem.

paco