When the weather is so bad that it nearly shuts down the Weather Channel, that could become cause for alarm.
The situation, says Bletas, is so dire that home ownership – at nearly 87% the highest in the EU – has become cause for black humour.
The few times when they did lose (say, not winning their fifth World Series in a row) became cause for tortured soul-searching: What had we done wrong?
David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee, Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Caroline Aherne – 2016 has already seen so many high-profile deaths that the number has become cause for comment.
But the threshold could now be lowered so theft, robbery and other offences that would fall outside that category become cause for removal.
But if membership in the Federalist Society was once a source of controversy, this week it became cause for a party, as several thousand members at the group's 20th anniversary conference reveled in its growing influence in the Bush administration in the wake of the Republican-swept elections.
A traditional Indigenous diet of dried game, fish, and berries, for example, became cause for alarm.
Our slow progress soon became cause for real concern: We kept casting worried glances over our shoulders, checking the position of the setting sun.
Trump's social media habits were a subject of amusement throughout the election season, but they have now become cause for alarm.
