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May 18

The verb “to be” in Shakespeare

No, not the famous quote! But in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there is another quote: “Though she be but little, she is fierce”; why is it conjugated “she be” in the first clause and “she is” in the second? 2A01:4B00:F622:4300:117C:B8D9:18EF:6B27 (talk)< —Preceding undated comment added 07:45, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

It's a subjunctive, triggered by the preceding conjunction "though". Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:53, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See English subjunctive, and note particularly the "Archaic uses" section at the bottom. Shakespeare's "be" in the "though" clause is an outmoded use of the subjunctive. Deor (talk) 07:54, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

"Fee, fie, foe, fumm / I smell the blood of an Englishman / Be he alive, or be he dead / I'll grind his bones to make my bread." - The not-so-friendly giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:12, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Note: this bread recipe is not officially approved by the Food and Drug Administration, even during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:16, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

But it's such a great calcium supplement. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:07, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Come on now, there's no need to get utterly ridiculous. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:04, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

So be it... --T*U (talk) 12:18, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

It really do be like that sometimes. --Jayron32 12:30, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

But that last example isn't a subjunctive, it's an instance of habitual be in AAVE. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:57, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Do be do be do. --Jayron32 14:46, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

That's not by the Are Gees, is it? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:19, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

These days, people who think they are "hip" and "cool" have stopped conjugating the verb "be". For example, instead of writing "when your girlfriend is like", they have started writing "when your girlfriend be like". JIP | Talk 23:32, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

JIP, some people might say in response, "You be pedantic, JIP!" Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:15, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Though this be madneſs, yet there's method in't.  --Lambiam 09:24, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

It's definitely not a subjunctive, because there is no doubt that she is small. If, on the other hand, she was [indicative] big, but wished that she were [subjunctive] small, that's a classic example of the use of the mood. To me this looks like rural English dialect ("Arr, but I be wrong about that.") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:F782:C601:CCB6:7EFC:FDAC:140B (talk) 10:02, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, you are wrong about that. The grammatical triggering of the (present) subjunctive in EModE has nothing to do with irreality. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:07, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

What is "EModE"? 2A00:23C7:F782:C601:CCB6:7EFC:FDAC:140B (talk) 10:10, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Early Modern English. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:22, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

What timeframe? I'm not seeing this construction in 1549 [1]. 2A00:23C7:F782:C601:CCB6:7EFC:FDAC:140B (talk) 10:38, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

There are plenty of examples of it in there. "Though it be appointed", "though it stand to-day", "although he be God and Man", "though he be Lord of all", "although he do not receive", "though he die". And that's only those I found by searching for the exact strings "though he" and "though it". Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:41, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The English present subjunctive (including modern uses such as it is important that you be prompt) strikes me as not so much a real–unreal distinction as a use–mention distinction. Of course it isn't used consistently to make that distinction, but that's what I think it's getting at. I'm not so much doubting that you will be prompt; I'm just not asserting it. --Trovatore (talk) 18:55, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, good old English grammar. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:00, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I thought of "here be dragons" when I was preparing this answer last night. Most of you understand what the subjunctive is and how to use it. The phrases quoted by FP@S are not examples. Consider these two quotations from the King James Bible:

• Also Hosah, of the children of Merari, had sons; Simri the chief (for though he was not the first-born, yet his father made him the chief;) - I Chronicles 26¹⁰

He wasn't the eldest son, no doubt about it.

• Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; - Hebrews 5⁸

Subjunctive because Jesus was not an ordinary human being.

As the commentary puts it:

8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience, &c.) This passage stands in a beautiful apposition to ver 5. There, considering Christ as man, his priestly office is spoken of as an honour conferred upon him: but here, considering him as the Son of God, it is rather spoken as a condescension in him to engage in it, and go through the services and sufferings he was called to thereby.

The Oxford English Dictionary confirms:

...We, ye, they beth, ben, be, were the standard forms in southern and midl. Eng. for centuries; and even in the sing., be, beest, beth began to encroach on am, art, is, and are now the regular forms in southern dialect speech. Meanwhile aren, aren, arn, are, survived in the north, and gradually spread south, till early in 16th c. are made its appearance in standard Eng., where it was regularly used by Tindale. Be continued in concurrent use till the end of the century (see Shakspere and Bible of 1611), and still occurs as a poetic archaism, as well as in certain traditional expressions and familiar quotations of 16th c. origin, as 'the powers that be.' But the regular modern English plural is are, which now tends to oust be even from the subjunctive. Southern and eastern dialect speech retains be both in singular and plural, as 'I be a going,' 'we be ready.']

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:F782:C601:B4EF:44AC:2C78:C144 (talk) 10:03, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

"Well, I'll be darned!" Martinevans123 (talk) 10:11, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I guess you mean I be darned! --T*U (talk) 10:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It's becoming more and more apparent the IP-poster here is VXfC, so I won't humour their ignorance with further explanations. Needless to say, they are still as wrong as ever. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I guess you mean the IP-poster here be VXfC? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC) p.s. isn't VXfC the name of Elon Musk's new baby??

Fut.Perf., please feel free to delete this entire thread. -- Hoary (talk) 12:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

"Though she be but little" may be preferable to "Though she is but little" due to the closely recurring "b" sound. Bus stop (talk) 13:13, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

No need for such speculation. "Though" takes the subjunctive, that's really all there is to know about it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:23, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

"Though she be but bolshy, she be Bus stop"? (no offence to Hernia). Martinevans123 (talk) 13:36, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, I'm speculating. I'm speculating that the author may have favored alliteration. Bus stop (talk) 13:39, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Let's face it, this "Billy No Shakes" guy was a dumb ass, whoever he was. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:03, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

French typography

In French typography, can a phrase like va-t-il be split across a line break at either of the hyphens? Or does it have to match with spoken syllables and break at the first hyphen but never at the second? —Mahāgaja · talk 12:54, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Assuming you're trying to say "is he going" in French, it's written "va t'il", so there are no hyphens to break.--Phil Holmes (talk) 18:12, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

*Insert Luke Skywalker "every word of what you just said is wrong".gif Heh, just joking, but there are definitely hyphens there, they're called "traits d'union" in French. To answer Mahagaja's question, you don't break them up at the end of the line. They're "insécable" (non-breaking) so the whole phrase stays together at the end of the line or goes down to the next one. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:45, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

@Adam Bishop: Great, thanks! I'm transcribing a text at French Wikisource and wasn't sure whether to use the normal hyphen-minus (U+002D) or the nonbreaking hyphen (U+2011) in phrases like this. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:39, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I seem to remember that the "t" in the middle doesn't actually mean anything, it's just a construct to make the phrase easier to pronounce by avoiding saying two vowels belonging to different syllables in succession. Is this right? JIP | Talk 21:54, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. I thought I had learned that it was called "epenthetic t" but FR wiki calls it "ephelcystic t". Adam Bishop (talk) 23:23, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Etymologically it's just the -t that the Latin verb ended in: va-t-il comes from vadet ille and a-t-il from habet ille. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:28, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

French is actually filled with these from a spoken perspective. Many words in french (spoken) end in vowel sounds where the written word has a consonant. Think of all of the -ez, -et, -aux, etc. words in the language where we're taught "don't say the consonant", except when the next word begins with a vowel, then we add the unpronounced consonant sound back in. From a written perspective, we're just pronouncing a letter that is already written down, but from a spoken perspective (imagine being a French speaker who didn't know written language at all) we're just adding a consonant in to a few select situations. The "t" in "va-t-il" is really doing the same work as the "s" in "mes amis", it's just that there's an orthographic convention to include the "s" in "mes" even when writing it before consonants "mes frères", but we don't attach the "t" to "va". It's almost as if French does whatever it can to avoid dieresis between words. --Jayron32 12:52, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I was also taught that the construction "que l'on" contains that meaningless "l'" because it would otherwise sound like an obscenity. --Viennese Waltz 13:04, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Qu'on is definitely fine in spoken French. Con does mean "cunt", but think about how many words contain this syllable and people don't associate them constantly with that word. --Explosivo (talk) 14:12, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

L'on is also used when there is no hiatus (as in car l'on^[2]), but is used mainly in writing and hardly in casual spoken text.  --Lambiam 09:19, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Is it actually etymological, or just a learned affectation? I thought it was purposely re-added to early modern French (as the Latin -t disappeared in Old French). Adam Bishop (talk) 20:39, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Maybe? The word comes from latin roots like vado, vadere, meaning "go" (c.f. English words like "evade", "invade") where there's a "d" there. So, perhaps? --Jayron32 12:51, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah but the t gets added after all verbs, not just ones that had t or d in the stem, e.g. a-t-il < habet ille. Still, it's analogical in some cases like loanwords that didn't exist in Latin (e.g. bluffe-t-il from bluffer from English bluff). —Mahāgaja · talk 08:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Back to the OP question. @Mahagaja: @Adam Bishop: According to the Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l’Imprimerie nationale [3] (my copy: 3rd edition October 1990): “Dans les verbes à la 3e personne du singulier demandant le ‘t’ euphonique, on coupera avant cette lettre et non après : aime-[t-/il — pensa-[t-/elle”. “[“ shows where it is allowed to hyphen and “/” where it is not. Notice it is a French French rule, it could be different in Canadian French, Belgian French, Swiss French. This could be overruled by another (e.g "on evitera de couper le dernier mot d’une page impaire") – AldoSyrt (talk) 12:05, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, that's interesting. Maybe the rule I learned is for Canadian French (or just a quirk of Canadian government style). Adam Bishop (talk) 15:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@AldoSyrt: Great, thanks for your help! —Mahāgaja · talk 23:38, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Some help needed.

Can't think of the best version (maybe both are bad):

"She described herself as having been a precocious child, often making older friends, and, due to her father's wealth and social status, [said she] enjoyed a privileged upbringing"

"She admitted to having enjoyed a privileged upbringing due to her father's wealth and social status, and described herself as having been a precocious child who would often prefer making older friends."

What would you prefer? And would you suggest any changes here? Shahid • ^Talk2me 20:22, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I like the first one better. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:52, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Including the [said she] or without it? Shahid • ^Talk2me 20:57, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Unless this is a real quote, I would lose the brackets. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:06, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

The brackets should only be used if the original text was a direct quote. JIP | Talk 23:07, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I much prefer the second version, except I'd change "admitted to having" to "said she had". There's no shame on being the child of a wealthy parent, and nothing to admit. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:11, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you all so much. The brackets were added because I wasn't sure the "she said" was called for. But it's interesting that Jack prefers the second version which I rewrote and wasn't sure of. Shahid • ^Talk2me 00:40, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I also much prefer the second version; it feels more natural and less tortuous. Additionally, as written there is a problem with the first version: "...due to her father's wealth and social status, said she enjoyed a privileged upbringing" reads as if the act of her saying something is due to her father's wealth and status instead of the intended meaning of her having enjoyed a privileged upbringing being due to her father's wealth and status. It should be reworded to avoid that ambiguity.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 01:52, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you William for stepping in. If I remove the "said she", would the first sentence read better? I mean, if it was "and due to her father's wealth and social status, enjoyed a privileged upbringing". Shahid • ^Talk2me 02:37, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Shshshsh, unless some type of qualifying language such as "said she" is included in the first version, then the narrator rather than the woman in question is concluding that she enjoyed a privileged upbringing. If this was language from a Wikipedia article, we would say that the conclusion was written in "Wikipedia's voice" as a factual conclusion, rather than a person's opinion about their own life story. Since I think it is better described as her opinion rather than a statement of fact, I prefer your second version, or the extra clause in your first version. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:25, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I seem to guess that you prefer implicit speechifying and consequentially the first version. Imho "enjoyed" it's too far from "and". I would write: "She described herself as having been a precocious child, often making older friends, and enjoyed a privileged upbringing, due to her father's wealth and social status--Pierpao (talk) 08:18, 19 May 2020 (UTC)"

I would write: ""She described herself as having been a precocious child, often making older friends, and, due to her father's wealth and social status, enjoying a privileged upbringing" Notice the change in the verb "enjoy". You already used "having" and "making", so this is just more of the same.--Khajidha (talk) 15:25, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I also think it must be "enjoying" and not "enjoyed", which has no subject and no leading verb in your sentence. Even better: "and enjoying a privileged upbringing due to her father's wealth and social status."

But if you prefer the participle, then "and she sayd she enjoyed a privileged upbringing due to her father's wealth and social status." 2003:F5:6F08:8200:AD1F:2C43:13C8:746E (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2020 (UTC) Marco PB