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The Time Being
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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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.
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 EATing"
Also, even if the stress has neutralized from "time BEing" to just "time being" over time for some speakers (which is certainly possible), it would still contrast with "TIME being".