• hakase@lemmy.zip
        31·
        4 months ago

        In isolation, no. But in this meme they are pronounced differently because intonation is different between the two phrases, and as exemplified here: inTOnation is AN inteGRAL part OF lanGUAGE.

        “for the time BEing” vs. “for the TIME being”

        In both cases you’re stressing the modifier, but in the former “being” is the modifier, while in the latter “time” is, so we get a prosodic stress contrast between the two.

        • fbn@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2·
          4 months ago

          a common thing people with autism and adhd is auditory processing issues, so it could work auditorily for them.

          i said it out loud in a few different ways and it sounded the same to me, but it could be a regional thing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        • TachyonTele@piefed.socialEnglish
          31·
          4 months ago

          You’re over pronouncing it. You just say it normally and the joke works perfectly fine vocally.

        • zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev
          1·
          4 months ago

          Interesting, I process time being as a set idiomatic phrase rather than a modifier+ so there’s no need for emphasis on one part or the other. And time being as similar to human being wouldn’t get emphasis unless it was contrasting with a different kind of being. But I also think we’re muddying different types of stress, namely word stress vs prosodic stress. I think your reading has to do with the latter but your example is about the former.

          • hakase@lemmy.zip
            1·
            4 months ago

            This is a good point worth commenting further on.

            Idiomatic phrases usually (but not always) retain a stress pattern that corresponds to the prosody of their original syntax even after they lexicalize. See: “the CAT’s out of the BAG” vs. “the CLAM’S out of the POND” and “kick the BUCKet” vs. “beat the MONkey”.

            So, while I agree with you that “time being” (and probably all of “for the time being”, for that matter) is idiomatic, its prosody has fossilized from its original syntax in which “being” modified “time”.

            “LET’S put it aSIDE for the time BEing”
            “LET’S put it aSIDE for the man STANDing”

        • blackbrook@mander.xyz
          1·
          4 months ago

          This might vary by accent, but the being in the first phase is often pronounced more like one syllable, like “beeng”. In the second phase, I would say the “be” does have stress but less than “time” does.