Last week I received the following message from Fay Nell Pitts:
“Hey Tipper, I have meant to write to you for sometime. I wanted to ask if you had ever heard the expression Beenabeing. Example: where is my coat? It has beenabeing right here. I grew up in the depression years in GA and this was a common expression in my family.”
As soon as I read Fay’s message I thought “Of course I say that!”
Conversations at Blind Pig House:
The Deer Hunter: Does anyone know where that flat cast iron pan is?
Chatter: What in the world are you talking about?
Tipper: It’s been-a-being in that cabinet above the microwave.”
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Tipper: I need to talk to Tim about something. Have you seen him?
The Deer Hunter: He’s been-a-being at the store every evening when I come in from work.
Tipper
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I use the word every day, just haven’t paid any attention to what I was actually saying. beenbein or usetabe, Gotta laugh at myself.
I beenabeing enjoyin’ Tipper’s writins’ nigh onta coupla yurs, now.
Well I haven’t heard that one , or grown up hearing it said , but it’s a neat fitting way to describe where something has been.I Like it 🙂
Tipper, I’ve heard it and used it.
I don’t think I have ever used it but I certainly heard it at my grandparents. Have used “been a laying off to” and “I’ve been a meaning to go.” But I still use “DADGUM IT!” and I thought that was a word my Daddy made up.
I don’t say it exactly the same. I leave out the a and g and say been bein. “It’s been bein hot here but it’s got hotter!”
I feel like what Ron Stephens said. It’s a vague memory and I haven’t heard it for a long while. Well you know how that goes. I’ll be around some of my kin this weekend and someone will say it. Ron made me think of an expression I do say. I’m a fixin to do such and such.
After reading Wanda Devers post, I realized I’ve said the same thing “‘ I’ve beenabeing up earlier than usual lately”.
That is a new one on me. I don’t remember ever hearing that expression.
I enjoyed Pinnacle Creek’s post about the neighbors sitting on their front porch. That reminds me of the way it used to be at nearly every house in my hometown. Twenty some years ago, Mom and Dad moved here to their country home that was located on a busy highway just south of Louisville. They had been sitting on their front porch back home for 60 or 70 years and continued to do so at their new home. How entertaining that pass time must have been to watch the cars whizzing by without a coal dust covered body behind the wheel of a pick-up truck.
I don’t believe I have said it, but I have heard it, though not for years now.
I say that still, but believe my usual is beenabein’. It has beenabein’ hot. We Appalachians try to run as many words together as possible.
New neighbors moved in, and they are so refreshing. They sit on porch and talk just like the folks I heard growing up. Their speech and everything is so familia from many years ago, but sad nobody else sits on their porches and speaks that mountain dialect anymore. She reigns from Paw Paw WV. They don’t seem to even have a cell pbone, or maybe just smart enough to leave it indoors and enjoy their porch.
Tipper,
A long time ago, after we went to bed, me and Harold would get up and sneek into the kitchen to get some Cornbread and Pinto beans. We didn’t want to wake Mama and Daddy, so we’d not fool with our shoes, kinda like we Squirrel Hunted up above the cornfield. (In the Fall we’d take off our shoes and sneek around the Liquor Trails. so the squirrels wouldn’t hear us coming.) Harold taught me this.
When we got to the Kitchen, Harold whispered “I’ll look in the Warming Closet and get the beans, you look in the oven, the cornbread’s beenabeing in there since it got cooler weather.” Harold got a Big Spoon and peeled back the white greece, It was just like being in Heaven. We’d eat right outta the bowl and with cornbread, we soon got our fill. …Ken
I’ve beenabeing up earlier than usual lately! Didn’t realize I was saying it till now.
Dadgum. I’m not sure. I think so but not anytime recent. Closer I can come for sure is ‘been a meaning to’ or ‘been a laying off to’. As in “I’ve a meaning to get over there this week but things keep coming up.”
Well yes, it’s been a being part of my vocabulary all my life. It is so common that I’ve never even thought about it. It’s just there. Doesn’t everybody use it?