Linked Questions
10 questions linked to/from Why "the powers that be"?
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The powers that be [duplicate]
How did the phrase "the powers that be" come about, is it an archaic verb tense of "being"?
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Why in this sentence there is a "be" instead of "are" [duplicate]
I read a book named Robin Hood and the King from the series of Reading A to Z, and met a sentence that goes like this:
My name is Robin Hood. We be yeomen of the forest, my lord Abbot, and
make ...
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Why is it “Who be ye?” and not “Who are ye?” in archaic forms of English?
When I was looking for “ye” in a dictionary, I stumbled upon the phrase “Who be ye?”. But why is it “Who be ye?” and not “Who are ye?”? The modern equivalent of “ye” would be “you”, wouldn’t it? “Who ...
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How did "beest" become replaced by "are"?
An example from Milton's Paradise Lost: "If thou beest he (...)". The similarity to the German word bist is something that I found really interesting. I was wondering when, how and why the word got ...
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In Early Modern English, is "beest" subjunctive or dialectal?
I am looking for better ways to translate between German and English, and I prefer Early Modern Engliſh, as a mode of speech, but mainly in written form, and I found out the other day that the ...
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"Be you angels?" - posh or wrong? [closed]
Maybe some linguist can explain why Why "the powers that be"? and my question are basically the same (grammar and such), but I would not be able to recognize this to be the same thing, so I ...
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What's up with the -es/-eth inconsistency in "O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus"?
This hymn was written more than a century ago, back when more people were aware of how Early Modern English arranged its conjugations. But in the second verse, there appears to be an inconsistency ...
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''Are they still here?'' Why is the word ''are'' considered a lexical verb in this sentence? [closed]
I know lexical verbs are main verbs and auxiliary verbs are helpers (be, do, have) to main verbs but I can not find a logical way to think of "are" as a lexical verb. Can you please describe to me the ...
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Be we all here?
The passage below is taken from Life's Little Ironies by Thomas Hardy. My question concerns "Now be we all here?". I understand that it means "Now are we all here?". The writer might have left the ...
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Grammar, Meaning of Following Sentence
The corporate powers that be had decided last minute that I couldn't
interview two key figures or use their information due to
confidentiality issues and pre-IPO precautions.
This writer of the ...
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