0

In this day and age, it seems that there is a lot of cases when a common sentence is not particularly 'correct' or grammatical.

"It do be vibing." There are many variations to sentences like these, but just out of curiosity, I was wondering if it is technically correct to use "do be" like this. Another example may be "He do be having fun."

Edwin Ashworth
  • 83,272
Seeker
  • 83
  • I've changed the title so that people with a similar question might have a chance to find it in a search; novel terms are usually unhelpful. – Edwin Ashworth May 04 '20 at 14:01
  • 1
    A lot of idioms are not grammatically correct. They generally should be avoided in "formal" speech/writing, even though they are acceptable in ordinary conversation. – Hot Licks May 04 '20 at 14:02
  • Almost dupe: https://english.stackexchange.com/q/78549/191178 – Laurel May 04 '20 at 15:03

2 Answers2

4

This is AAVE — African-American Vernacular English.

No, it's not grammatical in standard English. AAVE has a different system of grammar (in particular with respect to verbs), and it is a common verb form in AAVE.

In AAVE, this is a habitual verb form. From Wikipedia::

[It is used] to mark habitual or extended actions ... [it] indicates that a subject repeatedly does an action or embodies a trait.

I can't say whether all people who don't speak AAVE use this "meme" only for habitual actions

Peter Shor
  • 88,407
  • 1
    Can it really be considered AAVE if it’s been adopted into use by people who don’t speak AAVE? – Laurel May 04 '20 at 13:48
  • 6
    @Laruel: Can faux pas really be considered a French word if it's been adapted into English? – Peter Shor May 04 '20 at 13:49
  • 2
    @Laurel Can people who use it really be considered not to be speaking AAVE? – Edwin Ashworth May 04 '20 at 13:49
  • @EdwinAshworth Well, there’s more to AAVE than this! In my experience (and also according to the scholarly articles I’ve read online), non-AAVE speakers who imitate AAVE don’t do it in a way that’s actually grammatical within AAVE. For example, “I be vibing right now” (quote from a personal communication) is not even habitual. – Laurel May 04 '20 at 13:58
  • 1
    @PeterShor -- Faux pas is the valley through which the fox packs run. – Hot Licks May 04 '20 at 14:01
  • @Laurel As usual, 'Is it proper English?' / 'Is it grammatical?' / 'Is it a standard usage?' are unanswerable unequivocally for quite a long period of time. How many 'people who don't speak AAVE' have to use it? To use it without virtual scare quotes? – Edwin Ashworth May 04 '20 at 14:06
  • Is AAVE the same as Ebonics? And is Jive Talk related to either? – Michael Harvey May 04 '20 at 17:34
  • @MichaelHarvey: AAVE and Ebonics are the same thing. Jive talk might include extra slang on top of AAVE. – Peter Shor May 04 '20 at 20:04
-2

"It do be vibing." is not proper English because "do" in the 3rd person singular tense is "does".

That said, "I do be vibing." or "It does be vibing." might pass as proper English in the right context. It is a bit of a stretch, but if you consider "be vibing" a phrase expressing an activity, then this could be considered proper English along the same vein as saying "I play go fish."

Nosajimiki
  • 248
  • 1
  • 8