MSGID: 2:221/6.0 5edba03e   
   REPLY: 1:153/716.0 ed99f5d2   
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   Ardith Hinton to Anton Shepelev:   
      
   > AS>  Addison in a psalm of his addresses God:   
   >   
   > AS>       I knew thou wert not slow to hear,   
   > AS>       Nor impotent to save.   
   >   
   > AS>  I don't think that substituting `art' for `wert' would   
   > AS>  harm the sound and rythm so much as to justify `wert',   
   > AS>  were it ungrammatical...   
   >   
   >            No.  But I think you're referring to Joseph Addison,   
   > who lived from 1672-1719 & who wrote at least two hymns based on   
   > a rewording of Old Testament psalms.   
      
   Yes.   
      
   > Bishop R. Heber said "...which wert, and art, and evermore shalt   
   > be" WRT God in 1827.  I'm not sure how much to attribute to   
   > liturgical anachronism ..   
      
   I see no fault with bishop Heber's usage, for with these words he   
   addresses God (rather than saying it WRT Him), and therefore uses   
   the second-person verbs. Why he wrote "which" instead of `who' is   
   another question. It is probably permissible because `which' is   
   more general than "who", and, together with `that', used be employed   
   to personal and impersonal objects alike, but Cf. another address:   
   "Our Father, Who art in Heaven...", where the verb is in the second   
   person too, but the prounoun is personal.   
      
   > as Fowler puts it... or how much weight to assign to the idea   
   > that when we speak of an immutable truth the verb tenses should   
   > still be in agreement.  :-)   
      
   Well, even these days the prevailing tendency is to have them   
   agree, as a quick search for "knew the Earth was round" in   
   Boogle Gooks shows .   
      
   > AH>  We've often had people say to us, in casual conversation,   
   > AH>  "I didn't know you're a teacher."  I doubt they are the   
   > AH>  only people who do this....  :-)   
   >   
   > AS>  Hardly so, but such is the nature of causual conversation   
   > AS>  that one has little time, and even less desire, to ensure   
   > AS>  grammatical accuracy.   
   >   
   >            Agreed.  When folks are speaking extemporaneously they   
   > tend to make grammatical errors they probably wouldn't have made   
   > if they'd had more time to think about the wording.  In an   
   > otherwise fruitless search of my own reference books, however, I   
   > found this description of something else:  "well established but   
   > controversial".  I think the same might also be said of the   
   > above....  ;-)   
      
   If the alternative is uncontrovesional yet unestablished, then I   
   prefer the former :-) I have failed to what the esteemed Goold   
   Brown has to say upon the matter on account of the sheer volume of   
   his magnum opus.   
      
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