32 Comments
"I asked him to let be" is not good English. Better would be "I asked him to let it be."
It's perfectly fine English. Archaic (as is often the case with literal translations), but correct.
Actually I've never heard 'to let be' but I have heard 'to leave be' as a semi archaic form personally.
1485
I am not sure I have seen "to let be" in English of any period without "it" somewhere. Do you rememner where you saw or heard it? It might be regionally specific.
"let be 2. (intransitive, archaic) To stop, to stop doing something; to leave off (now used alone, formerly also + infinitive). Example: 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.ii: 'Let be therefore my vengeaunce to disswade [...]'."
It can certainly stand alone.
The archaic form is fun! "I bade him to let be". I would really say "let [obj.] alone" and not use the word bade, but it doesn't really matter -- point made. The archaic form is certainly correct, though, even if some extremists might find that it is "not good English".
- 1485
Except, of course, that the Spenser citation may include my vengeaunce as a direct object, though one can't tell without the rest of the sentence. It is a construction that is common in a number of other languages, so I would not be surprised if it existed in English at some point somewhere, but I had never seen it. As I say, I'm still not sure I see it in the Spenser.
Thank you for your example: The archaic form is fun! "I bade him to let be". This will help me to never forget the word. Although many study Latin to understand English better, which is fine, I think many people would be shocked how much English comes from Danish, or is at least related to it closely. It's obvious their origin has a lot in common. Interesting.
thank you. that was a neat explanation. just thinking bad and bade..... same root word or was that just serendipitous?
I asked a few native English-speaking friends of mine and they said that they have never heard the expression "let be" before. They say it may very well be in the dictionary but it is not in common literary or spoken use anymore. They would actually be inclined to say it is wrong, and recommend "let it be" to learners of English if they don't want to sound foreign.
- 1003
I would agree with that (native US English). Let be MIGHT be something you'd find in old texts, but let it be would be more common.
Because the verb here is 'bad ... om' where the '...' is the person you're asking or pleading to.
I liked an example above that explained that it is similar to an archaic for in English. That would be something like "I bade him to leave be" where 'bade' would be to ask or plead, and 'leave be' would be to stop, or "knock it off".
'At slutte' is more like 'to finish' or 'to end', but if someone's annoying you, it would be more common to say 'lade være' instead.
'At spørge' means to ask about something whereas 'at bad ... om' means to plead or beg.
- 237
What is the difference between bad and spurgte and how do you know when it is appropriate to use them, for example if you said Jeg spurgte ham om at lade være, what is the difference from the example above?
- 336
Spørge - requesting an answer
Bede om - requesting someone to do something
Your sentence doesn't make much sense.
Because the verb is 'at bade nogen om' (to ask someone to do something) and 'at vaere' means 'to be'. 'Lade vaere' means 'stop'.
