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"My happiness comes from women, be it my mother, someone who had me in her womb for 9 months, then had to deal with my behavior for 13 more years, be it my sisters who have supported me and tried their best to make me happy"

CowperKettle
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user48106
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    **be it** is like "whether it be", a kind of conditional. The word order is inverted and the verb goes from "is" to "be" as a marker. You could paraphrase: Whether it is my mother, or my sisters, from whom my happiness comes, in either case my happiness comes from women. P.S. Did you mean to say **sisters** in the plural? If not, change "their" to "her" and "have" to "has". – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jan 21 '17 at 13:52
  • Were this anything other than plain old ***subjunctive inversion***, we would have told you so. :) – tchrist Jan 21 '17 at 14:38
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    What @TRomano said. Note that the cited usage is at the very least "clumsy" (if not actually "ungrammatical"), in that the second instance of ***be it*** should more naturally be replaced by ***or***. I think it suggests a somewhat precocious 13-year-old attempting with limited success to use a relatively formal and dated "literary" style/register. – FumbleFingers Jan 21 '17 at 14:39
  • I would recommend omitting **someone**. – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jan 21 '17 at 14:45
  • be it A or be it B. I hate apples, be they green or red. – Lambie Jan 21 '17 at 19:49
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo would you please tell me what 'it' indicates in the sentence? – GKK Jan 04 '18 at 20:49
  • @Evariste Galois: I think a contemporary linguist/grammarian would say that **it** is so-called "expletive 'it' " used with an extraposed subject, "my mother": *It is my mother* in the declarative becomes *if it be my mother* or *be it my mother* in the subjunctive. – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jan 04 '18 at 21:20
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo the it looks like this it as in "it is raining now!" Then, doesn't it indicate anything? – GKK Jan 04 '18 at 21:34
  • @Evariste Galois: That is correct, so-called "expletive" or "dummy" **it** does not have a specific referent. – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jan 04 '18 at 23:44

2 Answers2

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"be it" is like "Whether it is" to introduce lists or alternatives.

Kundan
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It's a present subjunctive inversion of "whether it be". "Whether it be" means "if it be this or if it not be this".

Nicholas Castagnola
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