Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  Bishop R. Heber said "... which wert, and art, and
AH>  evermore shalt be" WRT God in 1827.  I'm not sure
AH>  how much to attribute to liturgical anachronism...

AS>  I see no fault with bishop Heber's usage,


          Nor do I.



AS>  for with these words he addresses God (rather than
AS>  saying it WRT Him), and therefore uses the second-
AS>  person verbs.


          Yes.  But these days we'd say "(you) were, and are, and forever will/ shall be" in ordinary speech.  While I have seen some attempts to modernize the language in old hymns & whatnot I tend to prefer the original version....  :-))



AS>  Why he wrote "which" instead of `who' is another
AS>  question.


          IMHO the most likely explanation is that... as you commented below... usage has changed over the years.  But "thee" and "thou", "thy" and "thine" may be retained in certain circumstances....  :-)



AS>  It is probably permissible because `which' is more
AS>  general than "who", and, together with `that', used be
AS>  employed to personal and impersonal objects alike,


          Hmm... I think you've made another important point there.  I like the idea that "God the Father" could be a metaphor, BTW....  :-)



AS>  but Cf. another address: "Our Father, Who art in
AS>  Heaven...", where the verb is in the second
AS>  person too, but the prounoun is personal.


          Except when it's not.  The Lord's Prayer is a translation & there are many different versions.  The KJV says "which"....  :-)



AH>  ... or how much weight to assign to the idea that when
AH>  we speak of an immutable truth the verb tenses should
AH>  still be in agreement.  :-)

AS>  Well, even these days the prevailing tendency is to have
AS>  them agree, as a quick search for "knew the Earth was
AS>  round" in Boogle Gooks shows .


          That's what I'd expect of an historian... [chuckle].



AS>  If the alternative is uncontrovesional yet unestablished,
AS>  then I prefer the former :-)


          I think it's probably the safest, in formal English at least....  :-)



AS>  I have failed to what the esteemed Goold Brown has to
AS>  say upon the matter on account of the sheer volume of
AS>  his magnum opus.


          Uh-huh.  When I try looking up some issues, if I can find anything at all, I get one of two answers:  "there are so many possible uses of [blah blah] I won't attempt an exhaustive list" or "my favourite dictionary includes thirty pages of xxx in detail, but I feel overwhelmed with too much information".  I'm reminded here of my adventures with French & Latin... where the examples in the textbook make sense until question #4, when added wrinkles are introduced.  :-Q




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