Re: "two be"

Am 27.12.01, Roger Mills yscrifef:

> Clint Jackson Baker wrote:
> >How to use this?  To cover things like the difference
> >between:
> >I wait tables (to cover the bills), but I'm (really)
> >an actor.  ("regular to be" before, but "active to be"
> >after.)
>
>
> Hah! Good. so--
> (active to be?)  "I'm not a doctor, but....
> (regular to be?)    I play (am) one on TV"
>
> Or vice-versa?
I would guess verse vica:

(regular)       "I am not a doctor, but...
(active)        I play one on tv"

Reason being, it's not "important to his being" that
he's not a doctor; but it is that he's an actor (and
therefore plays doctors on tv).

Could be idiomatic forces at work, altering the meanings
if the two bes be switched about.

As an aside,  the quasi archaic English I write in at
times has two bes as well. One is substantive, and I
think might answer at times to Clint's "active" form;
the other is copulative. So:

I be a doctor / I am a doctor in the play. Usage is
not consistent, though, so :P

Padraic.
--
Bethes gwaz vaz ha leal.

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