Comment by dotancohen
3 hours ago
> products be endlessly repackaged
I don't speak English at home either, so I hope this helps. It's "products are", not "products be".
3 hours ago
> products be endlessly repackaged
I don't speak English at home either, so I hope this helps. It's "products are", not "products be".
It's ebonics, a slang or dialect version of using "are."
Linguistically it's particularly interesting since it marks the habitual aspect, and standard English has no grammatical equivalent.[0]
[0]: https://ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/invariant-be#who-says-this
And it's more like "are being" here (present imperfect)
sometimes it do be like that
i’m thinking it’s an intentional turn of phrase
so for example in native English, if someone upset some people, you might say, just to be creatively different:
“oh boy. people be big mad”
it is an idiom, not necessarily officially part of the language. just saying things in a silly way to be different
“now you’ve done it… People be cryin’!”
I think it might also be an echo of pidgin English/Creole/caribbean English? Would be an interesting language dive. Ask an AI!