Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / December 2003

Twenty-five years ago, I was working on
a pier with a shipmate, who had a bad habit
of mocking the way "other people" spoke.

This time, he said, "I be doing it!"
right when a black shipmate walked by.

Tom spun around exclaiming,

" Who said that?  Groleau? is you bilingual? "

"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
<stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote on 29 Dec 2003:

Only if you allow yourself to listen to it. Turn your radio station
to one that plays classical music, blues, or jazz; don't watch MTV;
plug your ears when hip-hop-slop or rap-crap is in the air; don't be
so willing to give up your own language; imitate the English of Jesus
and Scrates (just a little joke for those of you who are humor
impaired); and ban the buying and playing of hip-hop slop in the
house: don't allow your children to pollute their and your language
--- assuming you care about it, that is.

Yes, in AAVE, but not in Standard American/British/International
English.

In AAVE, yes, but not in my dialect, it isn't. You been lissinin ta
too much gangsta rap crap. Speakers of standard English usually say
"Don't ever do that again" or just "Don't do that". "Don't smoke"
doesn't always mean "Don't smoke here and now"; it usually means
"Don't make smoking a habit". The simple present and not "be+V+/-
ing/" is used for habitual action in standard English.

Surely it's teh other way round. We use the present simple for habitual
actions and states, whereas the present continuous (or progressive) is
used for current (usually fairly short term) activities.

BTW "Don't be doing that" is (or perhaps more "was" now) quite common in
Ireland, meaning roughly "Stop doing that" or "You shouldn't be doing that."

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan