Learn English – the structure of “Long time passing”

meaningsentence-patterns

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
…..

What is the exact meaning of "Long time passing"? What kind of construct is it?

NB: Of course I can infer an approximate meaning, but I can't recognize the structure
[adj] [noun] [present participle] as a stand alone one.

Best Answer

"long" is an adjective. "time" is a noun, as well as the subject, while "passing" is a present participle, the verb.

"Long time passing" refers to a great amount of time that has passed by since the flowers were gone. This can be seen by the fact that the fourth line "Long time ago" indicates something that has happened in the past.

Most songs don't have a correct grammatical structure, and this one doesn't really have one either. I think the correct form would have been:

Long time passed.

But because a song needs a rhythmn, an additional syllable had to be added, hence the "passing".
Of course, he could have done:

Long time has passed.

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