Comment on The Time Being

• hakase@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No, but intonation is different between the two phrases, and as exemplified here: inTOnation is AN inteGRAL part OF lanGUAGE.

  “for the time BEing” vs. “for the TIME being”

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  • blackbrook@mander.xyz ⁨54⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    This might vary by accent, but the being in the first phase is often pronounced more like one syllable, like “beeng”. In the second phase, I would say the “be” does have stress but less than “time” does.

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  • fbn@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    a common thing people with autism and adhd is auditory processing issues, so it could work auditorily for them.

    i said it out loud in a few different ways and it sounded the same to me, but it could be a regional thing ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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    • hakase@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s really interesting that they sound the same to you! I’d expect both to have merged to the “for the TIME being” pronunciation if that were the case - does that match your intuition?

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  • zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Interesting, I process time being as a set idiomatic phrase rather than a modifier+ so there’s no need for emphasis on one part or the other. And time being as similar to human being wouldn’t get emphasis unless it was contrasting with a different kind of being. But I also think we’re muddying different types of stress, namely word stress vs prosodic stress. I think your reading has to do with the latter but your example is about the former.

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    • hakase@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Idiomatic phrases usually (but not always) retain the stress pattern of their original syntax even after they lexicalize. See: “the CAT’s out of the BAG” vs. “the CLAM’S out of the POND” and “kick the BUCKet” vs. “beat the MONkey”.

      So, while I agree with you that “time being” (and probably all of “for the time being”, for that matter) is idiomatic, its prosody has fossilized from its original syntax in which “being” modified “time”.

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  • TachyonTele@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    You’re over pronouncing it. You just say it normally and the joke works perfectly fine vocally.

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    • hakase@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      My comment was based on fluent speech, not careful speech.

      I’m entertaining the idea that some of the commenters here may speak varieties (or even idiolects) where the two pronunciations have merged, but I think the more likely explanation is that they’re laypeople who (like many native speakers) aren’t able to detect stress contrasts in their own speech.

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      • TachyonTele@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Anywho, I know who not to tell puns to…

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