Why do people sometimes use BE instead of Is/Are?
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For example, In the lyrics of the "Pumped Up Kicks" song you can see this:
"He be coming home late, he is coming home late"
I assume that "he be coming home late" has the same meaning as "He comes home late", meaning that this is what normally happens?
Or is it just the same as "he is coming home late", which means his coming home late at the moment of saying that?
non-standard-english
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
add a comment |Â
up vote
9
down vote
favorite
For example, In the lyrics of the "Pumped Up Kicks" song you can see this:
"He be coming home late, he is coming home late"
I assume that "he be coming home late" has the same meaning as "He comes home late", meaning that this is what normally happens?
Or is it just the same as "he is coming home late", which means his coming home late at the moment of saying that?
non-standard-english
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
3
Related question What's the grammar behind “Noun/pronoun + be + gerundâ€Â
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 19:59
add a comment |Â
up vote
9
down vote
favorite
up vote
9
down vote
favorite
For example, In the lyrics of the "Pumped Up Kicks" song you can see this:
"He be coming home late, he is coming home late"
I assume that "he be coming home late" has the same meaning as "He comes home late", meaning that this is what normally happens?
Or is it just the same as "he is coming home late", which means his coming home late at the moment of saying that?
non-standard-english
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
For example, In the lyrics of the "Pumped Up Kicks" song you can see this:
"He be coming home late, he is coming home late"
I assume that "he be coming home late" has the same meaning as "He comes home late", meaning that this is what normally happens?
Or is it just the same as "he is coming home late", which means his coming home late at the moment of saying that?
non-standard-english
non-standard-english
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
edited Sep 27 at 19:54
ColleenV♦
10.3k53158
10.3k53158
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
asked Sep 27 at 19:16
Ãœðрú ßðòûþòøч
577
577
3
Related question What's the grammar behind “Noun/pronoun + be + gerundâ€Â
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 19:59
add a comment |Â
3
Related question What's the grammar behind “Noun/pronoun + be + gerundâ€Â
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 19:59
3
3
Related question What's the grammar behind “Noun/pronoun + be + gerundâ€Â
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 19:59
Related question What's the grammar behind “Noun/pronoun + be + gerundâ€Â
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 19:59
add a comment |Â
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
up vote
15
down vote
accepted
He be coming home late is a dialectical phrasing that means, as you surmise, he [habitually] comes home late. It is associated especially with African-American English and Caribbean English.
Linguists call this the invariant be or habitual be. Be is not simply a replacement for is; he be coming home late means he customarily or regularly comes home late, and not that he is currently in the process of coming home late. Some discussion of this in layman's terms can be found in the Slate article Why We Be Loving the “Habitual Be†by Katy Waldman, at the Lexicon Valley blog.
The meaning of lyrics is highly subject to interpretation. As Mark Foster is not a native speaker of African-American English (so far as I know), the lyric may be intended to paint a certain image of the narrator or setting, but it might simply have been an artistic choice for sonorous qualities aside from any cultural connotations. It's also impossible to know whether he is aware of the natural use of the habitual be or, as many do, he thinks he can drop it in anywhere to replace is, or if "Robert" thinks so.
Using dialects of minority communities is always fraught for an outsider, so I would advise the average English learner to stick with more standard English (e.g. he "always" comes home late).
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
2
I think it's more commonly called African American Vernacular English these days.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:20
@ColleenV Ah, but not all AAE is AAVE from what I understand. I am not a linguist, however, and have no desire to get into the politics of classifying languages and dialects.
– choster
Sep 27 at 20:23
Yeah and it's one usage in all of the lyrics - AAVE has a lot of similarity to rural Southern dialects as well, so who's to say where this stray "be" came from. The songwriter has admitted hip-hop influencing him though.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:27
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
"He be coming home late" is an example of AAVE, not standard English. It means "he is coming home late" or more recently "he comes home late (regularly)."
Though the musicians in question all appear to have white, middle class backgrounds, they are emulating speech patterns found in certain American ghettos, probably because these patterns are also common in certain musical styles.
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
3
It is certainly dialectal, and in the context of the song I would guess it is AAVE, but my comment is that that use of 'be' is by no means confined to AAVE but occurs in many dialects, such as, for example, that of rural Wiltshire in the south of England. In George Bernard Shaw's play "St Joan", Joan says "Where be Dauphin?" with the playwright presumably using a dialectal form of English to make the point that Joan was just a peasant girl (in reality a French-speaking peasant girl).
– JeremyC
Sep 27 at 21:59
@JeremyC, not to mention Piratespeak. [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
– Harry Johnston
Sep 28 at 9:16
1
@HarryJohnston Despite the superficial similarity, that's actually a different use of be, both in terms of grammar and meaning.
– snailboat♦
Sep 30 at 11:16
add a comment |Â
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
15
down vote
accepted
He be coming home late is a dialectical phrasing that means, as you surmise, he [habitually] comes home late. It is associated especially with African-American English and Caribbean English.
Linguists call this the invariant be or habitual be. Be is not simply a replacement for is; he be coming home late means he customarily or regularly comes home late, and not that he is currently in the process of coming home late. Some discussion of this in layman's terms can be found in the Slate article Why We Be Loving the “Habitual Be†by Katy Waldman, at the Lexicon Valley blog.
The meaning of lyrics is highly subject to interpretation. As Mark Foster is not a native speaker of African-American English (so far as I know), the lyric may be intended to paint a certain image of the narrator or setting, but it might simply have been an artistic choice for sonorous qualities aside from any cultural connotations. It's also impossible to know whether he is aware of the natural use of the habitual be or, as many do, he thinks he can drop it in anywhere to replace is, or if "Robert" thinks so.
Using dialects of minority communities is always fraught for an outsider, so I would advise the average English learner to stick with more standard English (e.g. he "always" comes home late).
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
2
I think it's more commonly called African American Vernacular English these days.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:20
@ColleenV Ah, but not all AAE is AAVE from what I understand. I am not a linguist, however, and have no desire to get into the politics of classifying languages and dialects.
– choster
Sep 27 at 20:23
Yeah and it's one usage in all of the lyrics - AAVE has a lot of similarity to rural Southern dialects as well, so who's to say where this stray "be" came from. The songwriter has admitted hip-hop influencing him though.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:27
add a comment |Â
up vote
15
down vote
accepted
He be coming home late is a dialectical phrasing that means, as you surmise, he [habitually] comes home late. It is associated especially with African-American English and Caribbean English.
Linguists call this the invariant be or habitual be. Be is not simply a replacement for is; he be coming home late means he customarily or regularly comes home late, and not that he is currently in the process of coming home late. Some discussion of this in layman's terms can be found in the Slate article Why We Be Loving the “Habitual Be†by Katy Waldman, at the Lexicon Valley blog.
The meaning of lyrics is highly subject to interpretation. As Mark Foster is not a native speaker of African-American English (so far as I know), the lyric may be intended to paint a certain image of the narrator or setting, but it might simply have been an artistic choice for sonorous qualities aside from any cultural connotations. It's also impossible to know whether he is aware of the natural use of the habitual be or, as many do, he thinks he can drop it in anywhere to replace is, or if "Robert" thinks so.
Using dialects of minority communities is always fraught for an outsider, so I would advise the average English learner to stick with more standard English (e.g. he "always" comes home late).
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
2
I think it's more commonly called African American Vernacular English these days.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:20
@ColleenV Ah, but not all AAE is AAVE from what I understand. I am not a linguist, however, and have no desire to get into the politics of classifying languages and dialects.
– choster
Sep 27 at 20:23
Yeah and it's one usage in all of the lyrics - AAVE has a lot of similarity to rural Southern dialects as well, so who's to say where this stray "be" came from. The songwriter has admitted hip-hop influencing him though.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:27
add a comment |Â
up vote
15
down vote
accepted
up vote
15
down vote
accepted
He be coming home late is a dialectical phrasing that means, as you surmise, he [habitually] comes home late. It is associated especially with African-American English and Caribbean English.
Linguists call this the invariant be or habitual be. Be is not simply a replacement for is; he be coming home late means he customarily or regularly comes home late, and not that he is currently in the process of coming home late. Some discussion of this in layman's terms can be found in the Slate article Why We Be Loving the “Habitual Be†by Katy Waldman, at the Lexicon Valley blog.
The meaning of lyrics is highly subject to interpretation. As Mark Foster is not a native speaker of African-American English (so far as I know), the lyric may be intended to paint a certain image of the narrator or setting, but it might simply have been an artistic choice for sonorous qualities aside from any cultural connotations. It's also impossible to know whether he is aware of the natural use of the habitual be or, as many do, he thinks he can drop it in anywhere to replace is, or if "Robert" thinks so.
Using dialects of minority communities is always fraught for an outsider, so I would advise the average English learner to stick with more standard English (e.g. he "always" comes home late).
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
He be coming home late is a dialectical phrasing that means, as you surmise, he [habitually] comes home late. It is associated especially with African-American English and Caribbean English.
Linguists call this the invariant be or habitual be. Be is not simply a replacement for is; he be coming home late means he customarily or regularly comes home late, and not that he is currently in the process of coming home late. Some discussion of this in layman's terms can be found in the Slate article Why We Be Loving the “Habitual Be†by Katy Waldman, at the Lexicon Valley blog.
The meaning of lyrics is highly subject to interpretation. As Mark Foster is not a native speaker of African-American English (so far as I know), the lyric may be intended to paint a certain image of the narrator or setting, but it might simply have been an artistic choice for sonorous qualities aside from any cultural connotations. It's also impossible to know whether he is aware of the natural use of the habitual be or, as many do, he thinks he can drop it in anywhere to replace is, or if "Robert" thinks so.
Using dialects of minority communities is always fraught for an outsider, so I would advise the average English learner to stick with more standard English (e.g. he "always" comes home late).
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
edited Sep 27 at 20:19
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
answered Sep 27 at 19:40
choster
13.3k3460
13.3k3460
2
I think it's more commonly called African American Vernacular English these days.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:20
@ColleenV Ah, but not all AAE is AAVE from what I understand. I am not a linguist, however, and have no desire to get into the politics of classifying languages and dialects.
– choster
Sep 27 at 20:23
Yeah and it's one usage in all of the lyrics - AAVE has a lot of similarity to rural Southern dialects as well, so who's to say where this stray "be" came from. The songwriter has admitted hip-hop influencing him though.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:27
add a comment |Â
2
I think it's more commonly called African American Vernacular English these days.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:20
@ColleenV Ah, but not all AAE is AAVE from what I understand. I am not a linguist, however, and have no desire to get into the politics of classifying languages and dialects.
– choster
Sep 27 at 20:23
Yeah and it's one usage in all of the lyrics - AAVE has a lot of similarity to rural Southern dialects as well, so who's to say where this stray "be" came from. The songwriter has admitted hip-hop influencing him though.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:27
2
2
I think it's more commonly called African American Vernacular English these days.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:20
I think it's more commonly called African American Vernacular English these days.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:20
@ColleenV Ah, but not all AAE is AAVE from what I understand. I am not a linguist, however, and have no desire to get into the politics of classifying languages and dialects.
– choster
Sep 27 at 20:23
@ColleenV Ah, but not all AAE is AAVE from what I understand. I am not a linguist, however, and have no desire to get into the politics of classifying languages and dialects.
– choster
Sep 27 at 20:23
Yeah and it's one usage in all of the lyrics - AAVE has a lot of similarity to rural Southern dialects as well, so who's to say where this stray "be" came from. The songwriter has admitted hip-hop influencing him though.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:27
Yeah and it's one usage in all of the lyrics - AAVE has a lot of similarity to rural Southern dialects as well, so who's to say where this stray "be" came from. The songwriter has admitted hip-hop influencing him though.
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 20:27
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
"He be coming home late" is an example of AAVE, not standard English. It means "he is coming home late" or more recently "he comes home late (regularly)."
Though the musicians in question all appear to have white, middle class backgrounds, they are emulating speech patterns found in certain American ghettos, probably because these patterns are also common in certain musical styles.
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
3
It is certainly dialectal, and in the context of the song I would guess it is AAVE, but my comment is that that use of 'be' is by no means confined to AAVE but occurs in many dialects, such as, for example, that of rural Wiltshire in the south of England. In George Bernard Shaw's play "St Joan", Joan says "Where be Dauphin?" with the playwright presumably using a dialectal form of English to make the point that Joan was just a peasant girl (in reality a French-speaking peasant girl).
– JeremyC
Sep 27 at 21:59
@JeremyC, not to mention Piratespeak. [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
– Harry Johnston
Sep 28 at 9:16
1
@HarryJohnston Despite the superficial similarity, that's actually a different use of be, both in terms of grammar and meaning.
– snailboat♦
Sep 30 at 11:16
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
"He be coming home late" is an example of AAVE, not standard English. It means "he is coming home late" or more recently "he comes home late (regularly)."
Though the musicians in question all appear to have white, middle class backgrounds, they are emulating speech patterns found in certain American ghettos, probably because these patterns are also common in certain musical styles.
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
3
It is certainly dialectal, and in the context of the song I would guess it is AAVE, but my comment is that that use of 'be' is by no means confined to AAVE but occurs in many dialects, such as, for example, that of rural Wiltshire in the south of England. In George Bernard Shaw's play "St Joan", Joan says "Where be Dauphin?" with the playwright presumably using a dialectal form of English to make the point that Joan was just a peasant girl (in reality a French-speaking peasant girl).
– JeremyC
Sep 27 at 21:59
@JeremyC, not to mention Piratespeak. [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
– Harry Johnston
Sep 28 at 9:16
1
@HarryJohnston Despite the superficial similarity, that's actually a different use of be, both in terms of grammar and meaning.
– snailboat♦
Sep 30 at 11:16
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
up vote
2
down vote
"He be coming home late" is an example of AAVE, not standard English. It means "he is coming home late" or more recently "he comes home late (regularly)."
Though the musicians in question all appear to have white, middle class backgrounds, they are emulating speech patterns found in certain American ghettos, probably because these patterns are also common in certain musical styles.
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
"He be coming home late" is an example of AAVE, not standard English. It means "he is coming home late" or more recently "he comes home late (regularly)."
Though the musicians in question all appear to have white, middle class backgrounds, they are emulating speech patterns found in certain American ghettos, probably because these patterns are also common in certain musical styles.
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
edited Sep 30 at 16:02
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
answered Sep 27 at 19:27
farnsy
1,789114
1,789114
3
It is certainly dialectal, and in the context of the song I would guess it is AAVE, but my comment is that that use of 'be' is by no means confined to AAVE but occurs in many dialects, such as, for example, that of rural Wiltshire in the south of England. In George Bernard Shaw's play "St Joan", Joan says "Where be Dauphin?" with the playwright presumably using a dialectal form of English to make the point that Joan was just a peasant girl (in reality a French-speaking peasant girl).
– JeremyC
Sep 27 at 21:59
@JeremyC, not to mention Piratespeak. [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
– Harry Johnston
Sep 28 at 9:16
1
@HarryJohnston Despite the superficial similarity, that's actually a different use of be, both in terms of grammar and meaning.
– snailboat♦
Sep 30 at 11:16
add a comment |Â
3
It is certainly dialectal, and in the context of the song I would guess it is AAVE, but my comment is that that use of 'be' is by no means confined to AAVE but occurs in many dialects, such as, for example, that of rural Wiltshire in the south of England. In George Bernard Shaw's play "St Joan", Joan says "Where be Dauphin?" with the playwright presumably using a dialectal form of English to make the point that Joan was just a peasant girl (in reality a French-speaking peasant girl).
– JeremyC
Sep 27 at 21:59
@JeremyC, not to mention Piratespeak. [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
– Harry Johnston
Sep 28 at 9:16
1
@HarryJohnston Despite the superficial similarity, that's actually a different use of be, both in terms of grammar and meaning.
– snailboat♦
Sep 30 at 11:16
3
3
It is certainly dialectal, and in the context of the song I would guess it is AAVE, but my comment is that that use of 'be' is by no means confined to AAVE but occurs in many dialects, such as, for example, that of rural Wiltshire in the south of England. In George Bernard Shaw's play "St Joan", Joan says "Where be Dauphin?" with the playwright presumably using a dialectal form of English to make the point that Joan was just a peasant girl (in reality a French-speaking peasant girl).
– JeremyC
Sep 27 at 21:59
It is certainly dialectal, and in the context of the song I would guess it is AAVE, but my comment is that that use of 'be' is by no means confined to AAVE but occurs in many dialects, such as, for example, that of rural Wiltshire in the south of England. In George Bernard Shaw's play "St Joan", Joan says "Where be Dauphin?" with the playwright presumably using a dialectal form of English to make the point that Joan was just a peasant girl (in reality a French-speaking peasant girl).
– JeremyC
Sep 27 at 21:59
@JeremyC, not to mention Piratespeak. [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
– Harry Johnston
Sep 28 at 9:16
@JeremyC, not to mention Piratespeak. [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
– Harry Johnston
Sep 28 at 9:16
1
1
@HarryJohnston Despite the superficial similarity, that's actually a different use of be, both in terms of grammar and meaning.
– snailboat♦
Sep 30 at 11:16
@HarryJohnston Despite the superficial similarity, that's actually a different use of be, both in terms of grammar and meaning.
– snailboat♦
Sep 30 at 11:16
add a comment |Â
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3
Related question What's the grammar behind “Noun/pronoun + be + gerundâ€Â
– ColleenV♦
Sep 27 at 19:59