The reason is not because

In the latest episode of Michigan Radio’s That’s What They Say, Rebecca Kruth, host, and Anne Curzan, linguist, talk about “the reason is because.” Citing the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage as an authority, Curzan says that this construction is “fine.” The word because, she says, reminds the reader that an explanation is coming. I would think that the words the reason is are reminder enough, even if other words fall between reason and is.

A point that Curzan doesn’t mention: MWDEU argues against the charge that “the reason is because” is redundant by pointing out that because here need not mean “for the reason that.” No, MWDEU says, because here can mean “the fact that.” Which would make “the reason is because” the equivalent of “the reason is the fact that.” But if that’s the case, it’s simpler and more graceful to say “the reason is that.”

In Garner’s Modern English Usage, Bryan Garner offers a markedly different take on “the reason is because.” While MWDEU cites many well-known writers who have used this construction (Francis Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, P.G. Wodehouse, Groucho Marx, and others), GMEU uses the Google Ngram Viewer get a sense of contemporary usage, with “reason is that” significantly outnumbering “reason is because” in print. In the GMEU Language-Change Index, “the reason is because” falls into Stage Four: “Ubiquitous but  . . . .” And Garner quotes a withering assessment:

This construction is loose because reason implies because and vice versa. Robert W. Burchfield, the distinguished OED lexicographer, put it well: “Though often defended by modern grammarians, the type ‘the reason . . . is because’ (instead of ‘the reason . . . is that’) aches with redundancy, and is still as inadmissible in Standard English as it was when H.W. Fowler objected to it in 1926.” Points of View 116 (1992).

Garner, as you can already guess, recommends replacing because with that.

Recommending that a writer stick with “the reason is because” if it feels “natural” and “sounds good,” as Curzan does, is decidely unhelpful. If “the reason is because” is far less common in writing, if it’s likely to stand out to many a reader as a known redundancy, it’s in a writer’s interest to change because to that. It doesn’t matter what Robert Frost did. Or Jane Austen.

That’s What They Say is fun when Kruth and Curzan investigate idioms and word meanings. But I’d check the feature’s advice about usage before going along.