Which person is most likely to say 'leave it be' an Englishman, American or none?

Question

post away.. and why ?

Answer 1

I can easily picture either an an Englishman or an American saying it.

I also think that the person who suggested that in England, at least, it has a rural flavour, is quite right.

Answer 2

Sounds American ...rural

from link:
The dialect spoken by Appalachian people has been given a variety of names, the majority of them somewhat less than complimentary. Educated people who look with disfavor on this particular form of speech are perfectly honest in their belief that something called The English Language, which they conceive of as a completed work - unchanging and fixed for all time - has been taken and, through ignorance, shamefully distorted by the mountain folk.

The fact is that this is completely untrue. The folk speech of Appalachia instead of being called corrupt ought to be classified as archaic. Many of the expressions heard throughout the region today can be found in the centuries-old works of some of the greatest English authors: Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the men who contributed to the King James version of the Bible, to cite but a few......

Southern mountain dialect (as the folk speech of Appalachia is called by linguists) is certainly archaic, but the general historical period it represents can be narrowed down to the days of the first Queen Elizabeth, and can be further particularized by saying that what is heard today is actually a sort of Scottish-flavored Elizabethan English. This is not to say that Chaucerian forms will not be heard in everyday use, and even an occasional Anglo-Saxon one as well.

When we remember that the first white settlers in what is today Appalachia were the so-called Scotch-Irish along with some Palatine Germans, there is small wonder that the language has a Scottish tinge; the remarkable thing is that the Germans seem to have influenced it so little. About the only locally used dialect word that can be ascribed to them is briggity. The Scots appear to have had it all their own way.

http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh30-2.html

Answer 3

Leave it be is a dialect expression in various parts of England. Others would say 'leave it alone' or 'let it be.'

Answer 4

that is a rural expression from south west england, used a lot in the farming community

Answer 5

It depends upon the person. I frequently say leave it be, but I know people who can't. It's got to be that way just about everywhere.