Comment by dash2
3 days ago
Mm. I'm a bit sceptical of the historical expertise of someone who thinks that "Who art Henry" is 19th century language. (It's not actually grammatically correct English from any century whatever: "art" is the second person singular, so this is like saying "who are Henry?")
As a reader of a lot of 17th, 18th, and 19th century Christian books, this was my thought exactly.
What kind of Christian books do you read?Jonathan Edwards, John Bunyan, J.C. Ryle, C.H. Spurgeon?
Yes, I've read the History of Redemption by Edwards, The Pilgrim's Progress and Holy War by Bunyan, quite a few Spurgeon sermons, and Holiness by Ryle in addition to (parts of) his commentaries on the gospels. I also read the puritans - I read Thomas Brook's Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices and the Body of Divinity (Thomas Watson) last year.
Lately I've read a few older biographies/autobiographies - Thomas Scott's autobiography (The Force of Truth), Halyburton's autobiography, and James Henley Thornwell and Benjamin Morgan Palmer biographies.
Right now I'm reading the Life and Times of Jesus Messiah by Alfred Edersheim (19th century).
How about you?
That text was from v0, the responses improved from there.
That text was from the example prompt, not from the models response
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Can you elaborate on this? After skimming the README, I understand that "Who art Henry" is the prompt. What should be the correct 19th century prompt?
"Who art Henry?" was never grammatical English. "Art" was the second person singular present form of "to be" and it was already archaic by the 17th century. "Who is Henry?" would be fine.
In some languages you can put a second person conjugation next to a noun that might otherwise use third person verbs, and it serves as implying that you are that noun. I'm not sure if older forms of English had that construct. I think many Indo-European languages do.
The part of the lord's prayer that says "our father who art in heaven" is kinda like this - father is linked to a second person conjugation. You could remove some words and make it into "father art in heaven", which you claim is ungrammatical. I'm skeptical that it was.
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Who art thou?
(Well, not 19th century...)
The problem is the subjunctive mood of the word "art".
"Art thou" should be translated into modern English as "are you to be", and so works better with things (what are you going to be), or people who are alive, and have a future (who are you going to be?).
Those are probably the contexts you are thinking of.
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"Who is Henry?"