English (AAE, to linguists) adds nuance to traditional verb forms, and study on “the habitual be.”* Have you heard of this creature? like pulling teeth expr expression: Prepositional phrase, adverbial phrase, or other phrase or expression--for example, "behind the times," "on your own." Typical constructs could be like the following examples: Niner fans be like...but we won five times! semi-formal fiction writing? What does be-like mean? American, etc. The answer from teenager Farooz Masroor confirms that this is employed across ethnicities to “mock a certain stereotype of any group of people”. But if the sentence is "I was like, 'Are you serious?!' Massachusetts Amherst’s Janice Jackson asked children in a now-famous What if we, like, reroute the power or something? be like: [verb] to say, in reported speech or conversation. I suspect that origins of a lot of AAVE, including the invariant be, is irrevocably lost. It's the "invariant be" - see section 3.1.2 of this paper. But I'd need a native speaker's (American English because most such memes seem to originate in the US) take on: There are two, maybe three, different things going on here: Habitual be, as John Lawler and J_LV observe, is characteristic of AAVE; it now appears to be spreading from that dialect into the speech of ‘Millennials’, and I am informed by my 24-year-old son that the use is not entirely ironic: it is marked as non-standard but employed unselfconsciously. | IT BE LIKE THAT #dadfiles | Nobody: | Me: Though Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Since then BE like (and bare like) has been in continual use. I understand these are strictly informal constructs. As is, you only give a label for it. By early sixties it had been widely adopted among white teenagers across the US (I cannot say when it gained currency in other speech communities), and it was about that time that I first remember encountering ‘quotative’ BE like. There is also (my son patiently explained to me) another be like usage which marries both of these: X be like Y employs a mimesis of X’s just-occurred singular performance of Y to express that that Y is characteristic of X. I have seen lots of US TV-shows and the like and I've seen this meme being used exclusively by African-Americans, as in black people. Primarily heard in US. It is the dialect of African American Vernacular English: Lexicon Valley: Why We Be Loving the “Habitual Be” Slate Magazine. Should I not ask my students about their hometown? Be like definition: to say , think , or feel | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples How is the "basic form/citation form" defined in highly inflected languages besides IE languages? particular dialect group, e.g. Of late, I have been noticing a lot of casual memes floating around, particularly on Facebook, that involve this phrase. That action may be--perhaps usually is--speech; but even then it is not merely a report of the words uttered but a re-enactment of the speech act, often with exaggerated emphasis and complex gesture. Can someone explain 衣锦尚炯 character by character? Can you give the actual nuance of this habitual 'be' in your answer? Be Like That may refer to: "Be Like That" (3 Doors Down song), 2000 "Be Like That" (Kane Brown, Swae Lee and Khalid song), 2020 This page was last edited on 22 September 2020, at 14:24 (UTC). It's only encountered in casual speech between teenagers (or at least not between students and teachers). Does the term 'protein expression' refer to the production of proteins only or also their regulation? AAVE is emulated by non-AAVE speakers, dog. The present continuous "Women are shopping" indicates that a group of women are currently shopping, i.e. To be similar to something. it is the reason that “she be walking the dog” signifies differently site design / logo © 2021 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under cc by-sa. Battery Box 8881 not providing enough power. Merely pointing out that the reason you may have heard black people use the term. And it may not be speech at all, but an expressive characterization of the act: "He was like Wham! I have no information about its origins but at this point nearly every ethnicity can be found to use it sometimes in casual speech. I’ve signed up to Like to Be because I want to help give the next generation access to real people doing real jobs so that they can make realistic decisions about what they would like to be and, most importantly, achieve their dreams, like I’ve been lucky enough to do. If the sentence is "I am like my cousin -- we're both crazy about fried onions," you're okay. O serviço gratuito do Google traduz instantaneamente palavras, frases e páginas da Web entre o inglês e mais de 100 outros idiomas. as verb, to talk about tastes ; as a preposition, with look and be to talk about appearance and ask for descriptions. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. Walt Wolfram contends that usage of the invariant be is age-related, in that young people cease to use it as they grow older. How is it used? Like - English Grammar Today - a reference to written and spoken English grammar and usage - Cambridge Dictionary It’s not common knowledge, but I think it’s important to share. These are very casual. Is there a benefit to having a switch control an outlet? 96 synonyms for like: similar to, same as, allied to, equivalent to, parallel to, resembling, identical to, alike, corresponding to, comparable to, akin to.... What are synonyms for be like? informal, figurative (in a frenzied way) comme si on devait mourir demain loc adv locution adverbiale : groupe de mots qui servent d'adverbe. Like can also mean similar to or in the same way.. For example:-Q. //]]>, Sorry, we have to make sure you're a human before we can show you this page. Here’s a hint: you don’t sound “cool”, you sound uneducated. Find 142 ways to say BE LIKE, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. Must be a young people thing. how this usage originate and if it has any affiliation to a And in speech it is still more characteristic of teenage than adult speech, because as people grow older they achieve a firmer grasp of formal speech and avoid casual use when there is any sense that it may be inappropriate. Free delivery on millions of items with Prime. In "I be like," the verb be isn't properly conjugated, according to standard English. Low prices across earth's biggest selection of books, music, DVDs, electronics, computers, software, apparel & accessories, shoes, jewelry, tools & hardware, housewares, furniture, sporting goods, beauty & personal care, groceries & just about anything else. My old rule does not work anymore with the latest version of arara, Visualizing the wave operator in two dimensions. : I cannot remember a like instance. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Idiom for "not doing something that makes oneself look more awkward" in an already awkward situation? 1968). " … like that Lyrics: Can see it from the way you looking at me / You don't think I'm worth your time / Don't care about the person that I might be / Offended that I walk the line / So what if I'm not Like can be used as hedge to indicate that the following phrase will be an approximation or exaggeration, or that the following words may not be quite right, but are close enough. @JonPurdy God.. Context: last year as a freshman I had a challenging history teacher who loved to put strange compare and contrast questions on his tests. Like definition is - to feel attraction toward or take pleasure in : enjoy. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, English Language & Usage Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site, Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, Learn more about hiring developers or posting ads with us. The earliest reference in that paper is a survey of non-standard English by the US Department of Education in 1968 (Labov et al. Adore is also used in an informal way for saying that you like something very much: I just adore their children. Why do military only use consumable portal scrolls to rather than reusable ones? Like definition, of the same form, appearance, kind, character, amount, etc. Share photos and videos, send messages and get updates. That’s the question that the University of how casual these phrases are, i.e. If you transmute Ennervation to another element, do you still benefit from the healing? ; Verb: to like The verb to like is used to talk about tastes, what we enjoy or prefer.. What sport does Peter like?He likes tennis. Who be eating cookies? My post reads, " be like 'To what extend is Adam Smith's capitalism inherently Machiavellian as it relates to the historical trajectory of Yuan dynasty China?'". flat on his butt" or, as in my son's example quoted in my answer "J.J.Watt be like, May I ask how popular you feel it generally is to replace. Eg. Synonyms for be like in Free Thesaurus. Like can be used . Is Ethernet synchronous or asynchronous serial? @TRomano "Sayin'" is I think too narrow: quotative, @StoneyB: By no means have I studied this carefully, but it seems to me that when "like" is included ("be, @TRomano Yes, the complement is never a predication of an action; it is a representation of the action. “Watt be like doodly-whomp!” for instance states that J.J. Watt’s brutal sack of the quarterback is the sort of thing he does all the time. adore to like and admire someone. Is the usage like “sugar free” correct in grammar? They must be like the last group who stayed. Don’t worry about it! There are lots of other AAVE constructs where be replaces are such as: Search for those strings with Google and you'll see they yield quite a few hits. "What does he look like?"" Constitutional amendments conflict with each other, does the most recent one take precedence? The utterances you quote marry these two senses: be is employed as a finite verb signifying habitual or generic application and like to mark what follows as a representation of behavior. Lbf, sure examples, but more importantly don't just cut and paste, add some explanation that addresses the OP, Stack Overflow for Teams is now free for up to 50 users, forever. //