"I have done it" vs "I've been had done it"

[Timsup2nothin]

You done gone to jail now.

Not now, but I have been done gone to jail. I'd be suspecting that many folks who be using the various forms of 'to be' as verbal filler are being folks who've been gone to jail too. Or they be being people who be routinely hanging around with us.

In writing, umm, that looks, ahhh, really bad, as does, like, any other verbal filler that is, y'know, common in conversational speaking.

But when you are just in a crowd of people having a conversation none of those things even really registers on the ear, unless you are listening for it.

 

[sophie]

I'm with warpus in never actually having heard anyone say "I've been had [verb]," even as a verbal pause. But if there really are people who say this, I'd call it, as any of the verbal pauses, a case precisely of one's voice running ahead of one’s thinking. And I would challenge, also, it's being labeled an "idiom," as the OP labels it.

I assumed he meant to replace the past participle with the gerund:

I've been had doing it.

"I've been had" makes sense; "I've been had [p. participle]" makes no sense.

 

[Lohrenswald]

[21:52] <Hygro> the concept "been" inserted
[21:53] <Hygro> means to communicate experiential significance and/or notable timing of the rest of the sentence
[21:55] <Hygro> the use of be/been after "I/he/they/we/she/etc"
[21:55] <Hygro> "i be/i been"
[21:56] <Hygro> communicates that it is the experience of the thing that is significant. without it, the significance is in the thing itself
[21:58] <Hygro> so "I been running", which the emphasis (i.e. how loud) on the word been is saying "I have been running and the experience of that is important" rather than "I was running
[21:58] <Hygro> "
[21:58] <Hygro> because "I was running" implies "running
[21:58] <Hygro> "
[21:58] <Hygro> as opposed to "not running"
[21:59] <Hygro> whereas "I been running" means the experience and attention on running, rather than it being nonconsequential
[21:59] <Hygro> (it meaning the running in the last sentence)

I've been "discussing" this with Hygro, but I haven't been able to make too much sense of it.

 

[sophie]

[21:52] <Hygro> the concept "been" inserted
[21:53] <Hygro> means to communicate experiential significance and/or notable timing of the rest of the sentence
[21:55] <Hygro> the use of be/been after "I/he/they/we/she/etc"
[21:55] <Hygro> "i be/i been"
[21:56] <Hygro> communicates that it is the experience of the thing that is significant. without it, the significance is in the thing itself
[21:58] <Hygro> so "I been running", which the emphasis (i.e. how loud) on the word been is saying "I have been running and the experience of that is important" rather than "I was running
[21:58] <Hygro> "
[21:58] <Hygro> because "I was running" implies "running
[21:58] <Hygro> "
[21:58] <Hygro> as opposed to "not running"
[21:59] <Hygro> whereas "I been running" means the experience and attention on running, rather than it being nonconsequential
[21:59] <Hygro> (it meaning the running in the last sentence)

I've been "discussing" this with Hygro, but I haven't been able to make too much sense of it.

"I be/been" is just a colloquial abbreviation of the present active and past perfect forms respectively:

I am (unconjugated)

I have been

 

[Gori the Grey]

I be getting more and more confused as this thread goes on.

When I've got more time I'll try to make sense of what Owen has provided and the chat excerpt to be seeing if I can figure out what this all means.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

No offense to our local intelligentsia, but I think you guys are putting too much on this. People speak the way they speak. It doesn't have to mean they are changing the meaning of language or creating new and profound idioms.

 

[sophie]

No offense to our local intelligentsia, but I think you guys are putting too much on this. People speak the way they speak. It doesn't have to mean they are changing the meaning of language or creating new and profound idioms.

Speaking as a member of this apparent intelligentsia: that's exactly what I said above.

Welcome to the club.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Speaking as a member of this apparent intelligentsia: that's exactly what I said above.

Welcome to the club.

Thanks!

I think...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

[lolspeak]Ai hassa confuzzled...[/lolspeak]

(English translation: "I am confused.")

 

[Gori the Grey]

Upon realizing his mistake, a person asked "Did you send your account information to that Nigerian Prince? " might answer, informally, "I've been had, done it."

But I'm with Owen. I can't see how "I be running" puts more emphasis on the experience of running where "I am running " merely stresses the existence, as against the non-existence, of running.

It's just a proper and a colloquial way of saying the same thing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And the thing is that basically no one uses proper speaking on a consistent basis in ordinary conversation. Record it and see. That's why transcripts of anything other than incredibly formalized things like a deposition are always just outright embarrassing.

When I have to process what you are saying as fast as you are saying it I don't hear all the bad construction, space filling noises, and unfinished and jumbled nonsense. When I can take my time and look at the ideas that you took your time and wrote out they are clearly stated and well constructed. But when you have time to look at something in writing that had to be said in the moment there is a massive disconnect.

Then in conversation once something is identified as something to listen for it becomes a marker. Like, wow man...hey, I'm a surfer! Or a wannabe surfer. Or someone who picked up that particular thing for my mouth to spit out as a placeholder while I figured out what I wanted to say who hasn't caught on yet that it has become a marker that people listen for. Which is a problem, because what people are listening for as markers, and what the markers are taken to mean, is constantly changing.

 

[Hygro]

The responses I'm getting here are very weird.

Maybe if I wrote "I been had done it" instead of "I've"?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The responses I'm getting here are very weird.

Maybe if I wrote "I been had done it" instead of "I've"?

It's gibberish either way.

 

[bathsheba666]

I assume the second is simply a mishearing of the phrase: "I've been and done it"

Not heard this phrase for a while, a sort of alternative to "I've gone and done it", which is more usually heard as "Now you've gone and done it".
Simply places a mild emphasis on the implied questionable nature of the deed.

And, for super emphasis: "I've been and gone and done it"

 

[BenitoChavez]

I'm with the majority here. "I've been had done it" doesn't make any sense, whether its written or spoken. Other verbal colloquialisms such as

Like, wow man...hey, I'm a surfer!

I can make sense of, even when written. But "I've been had done it" is just meaningless

Maybe if I wrote "I been had done it" instead of "I've"?

Doesn't make sense to me. These do, either as proper English or everyday speak:

I've done it.
I've been doing it.
I been doing it.
I had done it.

 

[warpus]

You done gone to jail now.

That "done" is not acting as a filler.

And I don't mean to criticize ebonics, if that's indeed what it is. Initially it honestly just looks like gibberish to me (I have been had done it). I understand that ebonics is a proper dialect and has its own grammatical rules. However, I do not believe that the sentence in question follows those rules.

 

[Kyriakos]

That "done" is not acting as a filler.

And I don't mean to criticize ebonics, if that's indeed what it is. Initially it honestly just looks like gibberish to me (I have been had done it). I understand that ebonics is a proper dialect and has its own grammatical rules. However, I do not believe that the sentence in question follows those rules.

A more characteristic example likely would be "you gone learn today" etc.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The responses I'm getting here are very weird.

Maybe if I wrote "I been had done it" instead of "I've"?

Perhaps I have fathomed what you’re trying to ask, Hygro. But if it is true that I have, I think the difficulty we have had in answering your question is that you are asking about 1) an idiom you have heard people using that none of the rest of us have actually ever heard (and so can only speculate about), and 2) (I think) an idiom that actually conflates two separate grammatical improprieties. The grammatically correct way to describe oneself eating in the present is “I eat” (or, present progressive, “I am eating”); in the past “I ate”; in the present perfect simple “I have eaten”; in the past perfect simple, “I had eaten.” In your OP, you seem interested in the present perfect simple, and in the snippet of chat that L provided, you seem interested in the present progressive. So I will focus on those two tenses. There is an idiomatic alternative (that I associate with demotic African-American English) for the present progressive “I am eating”: namely, “I be eating.” There is a different idiomatic alternative (that I most strongly associate with poor whites, actually), for the present perfect simple “I have eaten”: namely, “I done ate.”

Both of them involve using a different helping verb from the one conventionally used to express the particular tense: be for am, do for have. But the second one also uses the form of the verb from a different tense, past for present perfect.

It seems that you are reporting having heard people compound these two grammatical improprieties into something like “I been done ate.” Is that correct? Have you heard people speaking like that? Using both the “be” and the form of the root verb associated with a different tense (e.g. the one used for the past perfect rather than for the present perfect)?

And you feel as though there’s a distinction in meaning between the two?

Could you give some actual examples of phrases you’ve heard people say? That might help a lot.

Or let me ask you this. How important to your question is the past tenses (since I think they’re what is complicating this to the point of gibberish)? In the chat snippet, you are focused on the present progressive: “I am running” vs “I be running.” Do you hear the distinction in meaning that in which you are interested in that tense alone (as the chat seems to suggest)? Because, if so, that could help you make your question to us sharper.

 

[warpus]

I've heard something like that, but "i have been had done it" seems at least 2 levels more incoherent.

Besides, you were initially responding to me saying that "to do" is not a filler like "umm". It doesn't seem to be anything of the sort to me.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

How is it 'incoherent'?

I went to the store.

I been to the store.

I been done gone to the store.

I be to the store.

I gone to the store.

All 'correctness' aside, every one of those has a pretty clear meaning revolving around a trip to the store, because the only words in the sentence that convey any real information are 'I' and 'store'. The rest is just standard or non standard construction to support those two words.

Next time you are on your way to the store, tell someone "I [mumble mumble] store". Make it under your breath, but go ahead and actually say "mumble mumble". I'll give you even odds that whoever you tell that you are going to the store that way will not question what you said, and if another person asks them "where's Warpus?" they will be told correctly that you went to the store.