omission of verbs to be

[Steven Mai]

Hi all,

I've been wondering if we ever omit verbs to be in English. In the song "The Rose", there is a line that goes "I say love, it is a flower, and you its only seed". Shouldn't it be" you ARE it's only seed"?
I Googled many times and there seems to be no one finds it strange or wrong.
Perhaps it's like, "you" (indicating the person the word YOU refers to) "it's only seed"?
Or perhaps the word "ARE" could be omitted in cases like this? If it's true, could you please explain how and when we can omit them?

Thank you so much in advance. : )

 

[MikeNewYork]

It is not uncommon to omit the verb "to be" in a sentence. It don't know a rule that covers this.

 

[Raymott]

It's not 'be' left out. It's 'say'.
I say love, it is a flower, and you say its only seed". No, it's not strange. 1) It's a song. 2) It's an ellipsis.

 

[Barb_D]

I don't agree with the way Ray parsed that. I have always understood it to be "I say that you are the only seed that can be the "flower" that is my love. I love only you."

 

[Tdol]

I Googled many times and there seems to be no one finds it strange or wrong.

Songs are songs, not grammatical exercises. No one finds these things strange because the requirements of tune and rhythm often cause songwriters to do things to the language that would sound odd in other cases. In the same line of the song it says I say love, it is a flower, which would be marked wrong in a test because the word it is unnecessary as we have the noun. But it probably sounds better with it there. Don't look too hard for grammatical precision or great precision with meaning in songs- grammarians don't usually write songs. Don't be surprised if words are omitted, added unnecessarily, or even to find lines that on closer analysis mean the exact opposite of what the writer intended- songs abound in these features. Mind you, the omission of the verb be here is common enough outside songs too.

 

[SoothingDave]

Not to mention the entire metaphor fails cause roses don't grow from seeds.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Some roses can grow from seeds, but it is difficult.

 

[Raymott]

I don't agree with the way Ray parsed that. I have always understood it to be "I say that you are the only seed that can be the "flower" that is my love. I love only you."

Yes, I can see how that might be right. In retrospect, my reading requires, "it's".