Talk:Habitual be

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[Untitled]

"Habitual be is the nonstandard use of zero copula or an ivariant be..." Should that say "invariant" instead of "ivariant"? 152.19.189.90 (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this really the definition that the sources give? Then this deviates from the use among linguists. Habitual be is NOT the use of zero copula. A zero copula use would be a sentence like He a good man. -- Sinatra (talk) 10:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is also used in hiberno-English, and it's conjugated like a regularly in the present tense. "He bes down the town every now and then." "They never be doing that sort of thing." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.62.161 (talk) 22:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also in the West Country, such as the Wurzels' lyric "Where be it Blackbird to?/I know where he be,/He be up yon Wurzel tree,/And I be after he!" 195.226.62.18 (talk) 13:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blacks or blacks?

Which is more correct when referring to a community of people?Paul, in Saudi (talk) 03:50, 2 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It would be "blacks" without any capitalization, as the name refers to their nominative identity/skin color and does not derive from a specific name, despite the word being used as such. Should it be capitalized, it would have had to derive from people who, for example, set up an organization under that name. Basically, colors are not names, but are used for nominative purposes in denoting characteristics. 2601:2C6:4501:BD50:4941:CB74:7C61:56CB (talk) 01:08, 10 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some black people prefer to capitalize "black" as a method of empowerment. It has no grammatical foundation. Though, I am not sure it is "politically correct" to say "blacks" at all (instead of "black people") when referring to race, anymore.199.120.30.207 (talk) 15:55, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hypothesized sources / diffusion from HE

Can anyone help? - with knowledge of the subject and/or access to the sources?

I’m doing some small help-the-reader stuff - clarifications, occasional links, etc. And the following paragraph, in the article‘s section on Hypothesized sources, seems to need it!:

Criticism of the hypothesis [that habitual be simply diffused into New World Black English from Hibernian English, through contact in the Caribbean] stems from the fact that there is no evidence that be was used as a habitual marker in the past or is used today in Caribbean creoles of English.^[4] Instead, Caribbean English speakers use the preverbal does to mark habitualness. They use be only as filler between does and the sentence's predicate.

This seems to locate Caribbean usage *out*side the scope of the article (“Caribbean English speakers use the preverbal does to mark habitualness. They use be only as filler between does and the sentence's predicate.”) I’m not sure the article generally is consistent with that? And it’s in conflict with the article’s opening sentence, “Habitual be is the use of an uninflected be in .. Caribbean English to mark habitual or extended actions.”

I’m not sure what meaning is intended. If anyone can explain, here, I then plan to amend the article accordingly.

- SquisherDa (talk) 14:02, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]