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"My happiness comes from women, be it my mother, someone who had me in her womb for 9 months, then had to deal with my behavior for 13 more years, be it my sisters who have supported me and tried their best to make me happy"

CowperKettle
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user48106
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    be it is like "whether it be", a kind of conditional. The word order is inverted and the verb goes from "is" to "be" as a marker. You could paraphrase: Whether it is my mother, or my sisters, from whom my happiness comes, in either case my happiness comes from women. P.S. Did you mean to say sisters in the plural? If not, change "their" to "her" and "have" to "has". – TimR Jan 21 '17 at 13:52
  • Were this anything other than plain old *subjunctive inversion*, we would have told you so. :) – tchrist Jan 21 '17 at 14:38
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    What @TRomano said. Note that the cited usage is at the very least "clumsy" (if not actually "ungrammatical"), in that the second instance of *be it* should more naturally be replaced by *or*. I think it suggests a somewhat precocious 13-year-old attempting with limited success to use a relatively formal and dated "literary" style/register. – FumbleFingers Jan 21 '17 at 14:39
  • I would recommend omitting someone. – TimR Jan 21 '17 at 14:45
  • be it A or be it B. I hate apples, be they green or red. – Lambie Jan 21 '17 at 19:49
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo would you please tell me what 'it' indicates in the sentence? – GKK Jan 04 '18 at 20:49
  • @Evariste Galois: I think a contemporary linguist/grammarian would say that it is so-called "expletive 'it' " used with an extraposed subject, "my mother": It is my mother in the declarative becomes if it be my mother or be it my mother in the subjunctive. – TimR Jan 04 '18 at 21:20
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo the it looks like this it as in "it is raining now!" Then, doesn't it indicate anything? – GKK Jan 04 '18 at 21:34
  • @Evariste Galois: That is correct, so-called "expletive" or "dummy" it does not have a specific referent. – TimR Jan 04 '18 at 23:44

2 Answers2

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"be it" is like "Whether it is" to introduce lists or alternatives.

Kundan
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It's a present subjunctive inversion of "whether it be". "Whether it be" means "if it be this or if it not be this".

Nicholas Castagnola
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