"be" " was" were"

[SlowwHand]

Re: "be" " was" were"

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride


Shouldnt it be, "it feels just like when you were not famous"?

You said were not, and I said "Yes, and also same as weren't". Follow along here.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Interesting speculation about English and the Black vernacular that I heard from a linguist a couple of years ago:

If you look at the conjugations of English verbs, they already don't have distinct conjugations in the past tense (I saw, you saw, he saw, we saw, they saw); and in the present tense, you'll notice that the first person singular and plural, second person singular and plural, and third person plural are all conjugated the same way for most verbs: e.g, I see, you see, we see, y'all see , they see. Only the third person singular (he sees) is different in the present tense, and only slightly. The big exception is "to be."

What this linguist argued is that English was moving toward eliminating conjugation altogether, and was only stopped by the rise of print, which effectively codified English grammar. Had the printing press not shown up for a couple more centuries, "he see" might well be correct.

In support of this point, he noted that cultures that spoke English but were largely illiterate -- like Black Americans, for several centuries -- tended not to bother with a different conjugation for the present third person plural and, further, tend not to bother conjugating "to be" in the present (I be, you be, he be, we be, they be) or past (I was, you was, he was, we was they was).

In this way, Black English is not so much bad English but English as it would have naturally evolved, had its development not been arrested by print.

Well, I thought it was interesting, anyway.

[snoopy369]

I actually wouldn't be surprised if in this case wasn't was used intentionally ... even rappers occasionally make subtle points about things

[Elok]

Rats, I was hoping for an interesting exploration of the rare English subjunctive tense, as seen in "if I were you." You can go your whole life speaking English without realizing that we employ the subjunctive mood/tense, since in most cases it's identical to its indicative counterparts. Instead, this thread's about plain old ignorant-sounding street-dialect. Blah.

[Provost Harrison]

Re: "be" " was" were"

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride


Shouldnt it be, "it feels just like when you were not famous"?

You are taking seriously the grammar of that Mike Skinner out of The Streets? Deary me, he's just some uneducated chav...

[Provost Harrison]

Re: Re: Re: "be" " was" were"

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride


How do you contract werent into one syllable?

Not pronouncing the second "e"?

Yeah, it is like you are added "were" onto "n't"...you don't pronounce that final "e" even when concatenated with the not...

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Yes. Commonly pronounced: wurnt

[Geronimo]

grammar rules should be utterly ignored in music and poetry.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

But only if you consider being understood to be an optional extra, easily discarded.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
But only if you consider being understood to be an optional extra, easily discarded.

Unless of course you couldn't care less about 'being understood' by people who are so stuck up about adherence to grammar rules for their own sake that they are unable to allow themselves to understand anything that breaks those rules.

If double negatives are unable to damage comprehension, I'm not sure if any good faith grammar infraction that makes it into song or verse is likely to have such an effect.

Have you ever noticed that in nearly every case people who complain about grammar errors in a document or utterance are nearly always quick to 'correct' the offending infraction?

I would guess that would be mighty difficult to pull off if indeed the grammatical offense had rendered the communication unintelligable.

Furthermore some of the most indecipherible excuses for prose I've had to endure did in fact perfectly adhere to grammatical rules.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Geronimo
unintelligable.

Unintelligible

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Unless of course you couldn't care less about 'being understood' by people who are so stuck up about adherence to grammar rules for their own sake that they are unable to allow themselves to understand anything that breaks those rules.

Eats shoots and leaves.
Eats, shoots and leaves.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


Unintelligible

it's quite possible that my indifference to grammar rules extends to proofreading in general

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


Eats shoots and leaves.
Eats, shoots and leaves.

And this could create problems for song or verse how exactly?

There is a lovely little thing called context at their disposal as well.

in fact careful ambiguity could even create amusing double meanings in the writers creation.

[Provost Harrison]

Still doesn't escape the essential fact that The Streets are sh*t. And what is all the Jamie T b*llocks about as well?