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Another thing that those who think Joseph Smith authored or worded the Book of Mormon believe is that he consciously shifted from using slightly more of the personal relative pronoun who(m) than that, before 3 Nephi 8, to using much more that than who(m) after that point (from 47.7% that before 3 Nephi 8, to 67.4% that). This is supported by dozens of verifiable usage shifts that occur in the book of 3 Nephi, such as whosoever to whoso and archaic subordinate that rates abruptly increasing from 2% to 54%, in the book of 3 Nephi.

Another thing that those who think Joseph Smith authored or worded the Book of Mormon believe is that he consciously broke from his general pattern of mostly personal which in using "he that" most of the time, not "he which." But in agreement with the general tendency, he dictated "they which" most of the time, not "they that" or "they who(m)." Relative pronoun usage after the pronouns he and they can be counted in hundreds of thousands of text fairly accurately, by excluding examples with intervening punctuation. Such a scan shows that this contrasting usage was a tendency of a small percentage of early modern authors. For example, Andrew Willett wrote with something close to the Book of Mormon's pattern of "he that|which|who" and "they that|which|who." The last author found to write something close to this contrastive pattern was born 200 years before Joseph Smith, William Day. Contrary to speculation, John Bunyan wrote similarly to the strong biblical pattern of mostly "he|they that."

Another thing that those who think Joseph Smith authored or worded the Book of Mormon believe is that he carefully tracked his personal relative pronoun usage while he dictated in 1829 ( that | which | who(m) ). This is of course highly unlikely, but they must believe it, in light of various details of historical and pseudo-archaic relative pronoun usage. Specifically, Joseph Smith dictated about 60% personal which (e.g. "the angel which spake" 2n0609), even though no one was speaking or writing that way in the 1700s or 1800s. (The rest of the usage is about 40% that or who(m), with more that than who(m).) Sixty percent which is not at all like the King James Bible, which is about 85% personal that (the main usage coming out of Late Middle English) and only about 10% which. And 24 of 25 pseudo-archaic authors used less than 10% which. Most of these authors exhibit a modern preference for who(m). The lone exception is an 1863 text written by R. G. White, an editor of Shakespeare. Its personal which usage rate is close to 20%. In addition, the Book of Mormon is more archaic than White's text, in many different ways, so another thing they believe is that Joseph Smith knew more nonbiblical archaic English than an editor of Shakespeare.

Overall, those who entertain secular notions wrt the Book of Mormon are quite credulous, in a number of ways. They are protected in their credulity by academic priorities. Here is just one of many ways they are credulous wrt Book of Mormon English usage. American English speakers and writers preferred except to save; the Book of Mormon has mostly save, which is a rare thing among texts with large numbers of except. AmE native speakers employed these two words as prepositions almost all the time; the Book of Mormon as conjunctions almost all the time. Historically speaking, the conjunction save was used as a coordinator most of the time; in the BofM, as a subordinator almost all the time. Conjunctive use was almost always "save that S"; in the BofM, almost always "save S." Overall, the Book of Mormon's save usage is unique textually. It is archaic in formation, and very frequently marked for the subjunctive mood, both synthetically and analytically. For the credulous, Joseph Smith generated the above as a matter of routine pseudo-archaism, even though there is no support for the above BofM usage among any pseudo-archaic text. (The above is also very different from biblical usage.)

This is ultimately non-explanatory, since most English syntactic expression cuts across these, and there is also a range of obsolete lexical meaning that did not persist over the centuries. Some things were obsolete very early. The above is readily generated with AI tools these days. Indeed, such things are now routinely found in peer review: AI lightening the workload for academics. The above amounts to a data-poor, academic position statement. No data-driven explanations will be offered for the strongest evidence, just unsubstantiated, academically acceptable potentialities. What ought to be offered are hundreds of concrete explanations. Recall that no one ever spoke English (from the 1300s forward) with something like the verbal complementation pattern of the Book of Mormon (n > 700, strongly finite). Joseph Smith did not speak that way. And it is a written style much more than an oral style, but no one ever wrote an original English composition that approaches what the Book of Mormon has. Only an older, long text could have something approaching it, and almost all of these are now in the digital databases. Recall that people did write with the interesting personal relative pronoun usage of the Book of Mormon, but only in the middle of the early modern period – not after or before. It is neither biblical nor pseudo-archaic in formation. And Joseph Smith did not speak that way. And so on. Even if the above points were relevant to a linguistic analysis of the Book of Mormon, it would not explain the English usage shift. The complex shift mostly occurs somewhere in 3 Nephi and it is mostly to greater archaism. It indicates multiple authorship, yet only one person dictated the original Book of Mormon text. It simply does not matter what obscure explanation might be offered based on region, genre, class, or ephemeral / noncanonical status. In terms of the shift, recall that Metcalfe wrote about t|wherefore in 1993, and someone noticed the whoso|ever shift in the 1980s. I noticed a strong shift to "after|before|because that" and save, and now many others. As mentioned, I have identified 30+ usage shifts, and some things, such as the save shift, show additional patterns. An overall shift is real and rules out Joseph Smith wording it.

Another type of phraseology to consider is "of which hath been spoken." This one requires some background. The original Book of Mormon text has "of which hath been spoken" twice, "of which have been spoken" twice, "of whom (it) hath been spoken" twice, and "of which has been spoken" four times. (The Book of Mormon was originally about 92% hath and 8% has and about 97% doth and 3% does; see the first edition.) The Book of Mormon has one example with an it and nine without an it. There are no intervening or accompanying adverbs in the Book of Mormon phraseology (non-subject adverbs like already), although these often occurred in the past, in addition to the bare usage without any adverbs. Both "of which it hath been spoken" and "of which hath been spoken" occurred earlier, and almost exclusively before 1690. I have seen one outlier in 1735, with an intervening already in the subject slot: "of which already hath been spoken". Pretty much the same thing for "of whom (it) hath been spoken". Usage like "one of which hath been spoken of" is distinct syntax, since "one of which" is the subject of hath. Usage with an expletive it or an adjective|adverb in the role of subject was more persistent (e.g. adjectives like enough|sufficient and the adverb more). There are a few examples of this phraseology in other revelatory output: in the Doctrine and Covenants and in the witness statements. There is also one at the end of the 1830 preface, which is frequently derivative of section 10. Some of these examples of "of which hath been spoken" could have been the result of revelation; some could have been derivative. So far I have noted two early modern texts with two examples of this phraseology. The usage without a subject was rare by the early 1700s. It was very rare by the early 1800s. So far I have verified only one example of "of which has been spoken" in Google Books, in a Church of Ireland magazine in 1832: "The advantage of which has been spoken regards the public". There is one example of "of which already has been spok'n" in 1687. (Already is not a subject in these, since it could have co-occurred. In contrast, it could not grammatically co-occur with words like more, enough, or sufficient.) The largest databases currently do not have "of whom (already) has been spoken" before 1830. I have not found "of which have been spoken" elsewhere. (Properly excluded are cases similar to "[some of which] have been spoken|mentioned . . . .") Two of these occur in the original Book of Mormon text where which is plural, so they are cases of proximity agreement. This was grammatical in the absence of an expletive it. That is, *"of which it have been spoken" would have been ungrammatical. There is one "of whom hath been spoken" in the Book of Mormon. There are at least seven without an overt subject in texts between 1550 and 1685. The one that is most similar to the Book of Mormon's bare usage was written around the year 1600, and can be found at least twice in Google Books: c 1600, Google Books, 33 • Google Books, 439 The book lying in her window, her maid (of whom hath been spoken) took it up, There is one "of whom it hath been spoken" in the Book of Mormon, which was later edited to has. There are at least five with it in texts, between 1563 and 1710. Here is the earliest one, which also has periphrastic did: "The begynnynge of Rome was at that tyme as the Kynge Salmanasar (of whome it hath been spoken) dyd raygne ouer the Assyrians." 1563, EEBO A09568, 13. The Book of Mormon sentence with "of whom hath been spoken" has two examples of periphrastic did: "And it came to pass that he did teach and minister unto the children of the multitude, of whom hath been spoken, and he did loose their tongues." (3n2614) Here is a rare example of "did teach and minister": 1590, EEBO A10609, 207 P. Martyr saith, there were two sorts of Elders: the one which did teach and minister the Sacraments, and did gouerne with the Bishops: Here is a rare example of "do loose their tongues": 1600, EEBO A13159, 223 to restraine such turbulent spirits . . which . . do loose their tongues with ouermuch liberty The above sentence from 3 Nephi 26:14 is early modern in character in at least five different ways. No text is like the Book of Mormon in this phraseology, which was almost entirely used between 1550 and 1735. It is highly unlikely that Joseph Smith worded this phraseology.

A comparison of “they | them which” with “those which” in the 1829 dictation of the Book of Mormon. Dictation order they | them those % they | them Mosiah 1 to 3 Nephi 7 31 91 25.4 3 Nephi 8 to Words of Mormon 104 9 92.0 The Yates chi-square test is one of the highest of 30 tests of shifting English usage: [ n = 235, χ² ≐ 103.82, p < .0001 ]. For example, the therefore to wherefore shift is higher. This is an interesting dataset and it adds to the improbability of what is generally believed: that Joseph Smith worded the Book of Mormon. For such a theory to be correct, he must have intuited all kinds of archaism, including rare and obscure archaism. In this case, he needed to intuit that “they | them which” referring to persons was more archaic than “those which,” and then proceed to implement a usage shift. The implementation was highly unlikely. More generally, it was unlikely for Joseph Smith to dictate more than 50 percent of personal relative pronouns as which, since out of 25 pseudo-archaic authors, not one wrote with even 20 percent personal which; almost all such authors did not even employ which 10 percent of the time. Specifically, it was unlikely for Joseph Smith to dictate as much “they|them which” as he did (135 examples), since only one of twenty-five pseudo-archaic authors wrote with any, and he was an editor of Shakespeare (R. G. White, eighteen examples). It was unlikely for Joseph Smith to decide to switch from using mostly “those which” up to 3 Nephi 7, to almost all “they|them which” after that. It was unlikely for him to successfully implement such a decision: to go from dictating “those which” 91 times up to 3 Nephi 7, but only nine times after that.

Yes, I am quite familiar with the view of his 2011 book. I am an expert in this area – beyond him in expertise. Consider the beginning of the 1829 dictation. This opening verse has, for the most part, fairly simple syntax, persistent over centuries. The way the revelation worked for the names is that Joseph Smith saw them spelled out in English. He did not just hear them, because he corrected scribal spelling of names in some cases, even when the scribal spelling was phonetically appropriate English spelling. So in mh0101, at a minimum, Zarahemla and Benjamin (twice) were revealed as visible words to Joseph Smith. Perhaps even "king Benjamin." The idea for the view that the Book of Mormon text was the result of a hybrid of revealed thoughts and revealed words is that the rest was not shown to Joseph Smith as words; rather, it was revealed as thoughts. In this case, it looks like three or four stretches of thought, broken up by three occurrences of two names. As far as lexical choice, disputes and strife were more common than contention in the 19c, rest was more likely than remainder, and life more likely than days. In the latter case, however, days is more appropriate in the sense of time of rule. The more likely choices were appropriate as pseudo-archaic wordings as well. We might even question whether Joseph Smith would have begun with just "now" rather than "and now." The Ngram viewer suggests that he would have preferred just "now": https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=And+now+there+was%2CNow+there+was&year_start=1701&year_end=1829&corpus=en&smoothing=0. And would he have used "all" three times? Perhaps not. As far as syntax, "people who" was more likely than "people that," which was much more likely than "people which." Only one of 25 pseudo-archaic authors used "people which," three times, and he was an editor of Shakespeare. So he was highly literate and much more knowledgeable in nonbiblical Early Modern English than Joseph Smith. ("People that|who(m)" occur 63 times in 25 pseudo-archaic texts.) One general point is that the entire personal relative pronoun complex of the Book of Mormon is archaic but not biblical or pseudo-archaic in formation (it is mostly which). So the which in mh0101 was probably revealed as a word, perhaps even "people which" revealed as a unit. And as mentioned, inconsequential syntax being revealed as words, like personal which, implies specific revelation of important substantives. This supports the real possibility that contention and remainder were revealed as words. Here I will leave it at that. So, what are we left with? A discontinuous revelation of words and thoughts, at times highly discontinuous. I see such a hybrid revelation as problematic and difficult for a human to parse. This is one reason I do not support such a view.

My position is that it is a revealed text, not a hybrid result from revealed words and revealed thoughts. Names revealed as words; biblical passages revealed as words, since they are not paraphrastic and no Bible was used; syntax revealed as words, in many different syntactic structures, since they are not what Joseph Smith would have produced as a pseudo-archaic author; usage shifts show that many items were controlled throughout, or there would not be sharp changes in usage patterns; some substantives revealed as words, since he was not familiar with various contextual usage. Furthermore, because syntax is of minor importance compared to substantives and so much syntax was tightly controlled, this implies tight control of substantives (lexical items). What then is left for revealed thoughts, and what exactly do those who believe in revealed thoughts actually believe? The many exclusions to revealed thoughts means that if the Lord waited for Joseph Smith to word things in his mind from revealed thoughts, then the Lord continually overrode the way Joseph Smith had worded things. He would have come up with a way to word a clause, and the Lord would have changed many different aspects of his wording. In many cases, most of clauses and sentences would have been reworded by the Lord, with most of Joseph Smith's wordings not implemented. Because the process would have often approached a limit of complete override, one possible reaction by Joseph Smith would have been to wait for the Lord to present the wording, without any attempt to word the thoughts, since partial override was likely, and complete override was possible. The above would have occurred in 1828. By 1829, in dictating Mosiah 1, Joseph Smith probably excercised the faith necessary to receive revealed words, and then dictated them.

The above really does not answer the question I posed. Indeed, notice the contradiction between Nibley, who incorrectly concluded that names were always spelled out, and evidence from the MS that the scribe sometimes incorrectly spelled what he heard, as in the case of Zenock|Zenoch and Coriantummer|Coriantumr. If they had been spelled out by Joseph Smith, the scribe would not have written the incorrect spelling. Apparently it is not understood by many that revealed thoughts does not produce names, which are words inherently. So how do those who think that only thoughts were revealed to Joseph Smith account for the names, which are words?

The general point is that if you meant first, by someone else, the Lord; then, in order to communicate that, specification was needed. Someone else is singular. People first think of someone who created an English-language translation while living on earth. People then might think of someone who did that in heaven, who had lived on earth. People then might think of God. What they will not think of is that many people might have been involved in creating the English-language translation, under the direction of the Lord. That is a viable speculation. One of the strawmen used by those who do not accept that Joseph Smith did not word the Book of Mormon is to say that the alternative is a single early modern translator. Someone else's translation sounds like it might mean that, which might be confusing to some. It is a strawman because the Book of Mormon does not just have Early Modern English in it. It is not a text of a particular decade or a particular author of the past. I have a question: For people who think that Joseph Smith worded the Book of Mormon from revealed thoughts, what was the mechanism for Joseph Smith dictating all the nonbiblical, unfamiliar names of the text?

Do people default to thinking "the Lord" or "God" when they read "someone else"? No, they do not.

(2 Nephi 27:24) the Lord shall say unto him that shall read the words that shall be delivered him Joseph Smith did not choose the wording. Of course he inadvertently made some dictation errors, like a human. And scribes misheard and miswrote. Most but not all of those were caught when the scribe read back what had just been written down. It is not someone else's translation. It is either the Lord's translation or a translation made under the Lord's direction. (3 Nephi 21:11) whosoever will not believe in my words—which am Jesus Christ—which the Father shall cause him to bring forth unto the Gentiles and shall give unto him power that he shall bring them forth unto the Gentiles It is a wide time period – 1390 to 1770 perhaps. Most people nowadays use the Oxford English Dictionary on a computer, not with a magnifying glass: the online third edition and the second edition on CD (which can be transferred to a drive). One problem with using Webster's is that a particular meaning might be missed. Another is the implication, in the absence of clarification, that the meaning of nonbiblical words is from 1820s American English. Another is that obsolescence is not clearly indicated in Webster's, which that article discusses. And so forth. That said, of course there is meaning persistence in many cases so there is no problem.

This is an example of why it is important to first determine that Joseph Smith did not translate the English of what he dictated (translate used in the default sense of taking words of a source language and turning them into words of a target language). So much of the discussion here is secondary. Here, webbles accepts the possibility that Joseph Smith might have worded the Book of Mormon, despite a large amount of counterevidence. Elsewhere I saw that calm invoked Webster's ADEL for word meaning in the text, even though that flawed dictionary does not adequately cover the text's word meaning. Do not take my word for its flaws, consider an appraisal from the early 1960s by someone who knew nothing about Book of Mormon English usage: Joseph W. Reed, Jr., "Noah Websters Debt to Samuel Johnson," American Speech 37, no. 2 (May 1962): 95–105. https://www.jstor.org/stable/453145. Consider an archaic meaning for the following. This will be new to most of you, although many of you might have sensed that there was something odd about adopting the typical meaning of the phrase "from time to time" in this context: Here is the archaic contextual meaning, which is not in Webster's ADEL: "At all times; continuously, or for an extended period; in an unbroken succession. Obsolete. (a1500–1679)." Oxford English Dictionary, “'from time to time' in time (n., int., & conj.), sense P.3.j.ii,” March 2026, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9257664969. Perhaps some here recall a few things I mentioned about the non-verbal save usage of the Book of Mormon, and that it is textually unique, in an overall sense. First, Joseph Smith (and his mother Lucy) subconsciously preferred except over save, but he dictated more save than except. Using a Helaman | 3 Nephi boundary, the Book of Mormon shifts from about thirty-five percent save, relative to except, to about eighty-three percent. Both of these realities argue that if Joseph Smith worded the non-verbal save of the dictation, then it was all done consciously against preference, without any biblical, pseudo-archaic, or contemporary impetus to do so. Second, the preferred usage of Joseph Smith and his contemporaries, including his mother Lucy, was to employ except and save as prepositions the vast majority of the time; yet they function as conjunctions in the Book of Mormon the vast majority of the time. In the Book of Mormon, except occurs as a conjunction almost every time, and save occurs as a conjunction about ninety-one percent of the time (177 of 194), relative to the prepositional use. Third, contemporary usage of the conjunction save was uncommon and strongly favored the form “save that S” (see the OED for this appraisal). The Book of Mormon is almost entirely “save S,” without the complementizer that (175 of 177; two exceptions: 1 Nephi 18:15; 1 Nephi 22:4). Fourth, the conjunction save in the Book of Mormon almost always functions as a subordinator. The historical and contemporary tendency was to employ save as a coordinator to a higher degree than in the Book of Mormon (my observation from repeated scanning of large textual databases). Fifth, the Book of Mormon has 70+ examples of pro-form "save it were." Currently, only five original instances are known before 1830, in five British texts. There is also an 1828 northern English example (not pro-form), with a literal it. (The Book of Mormon has four with a literal it.) Pro-form "save it were" is one way of many that the Book of Mormon is more British than American in its English usage. And so on and so forth (e.g. save . . shall | should"). In short, almost everything about non-verbal save is different from what the Book of Mormon would have, if Joseph Smith had authored it. A reasonable conclusion is that Joseph Smith did not word the non-verbal save usage of the Book of Mormon. An unreasonable conclusion is that he did.

Let me clarify that the first ¶ above, on circular reasoning, is a general statement about internally comparing Joseph Smith's revelatory language. The interesting points to be made from "if it so be" in the Book of Mormon are as stated in the last ¶ above. Another relevant point is that Book of Mormon syntax is not necessarily a translation artifact; perhaps most of the time it is not. For example, the periphrastic did of the Book of Mormon is not the result of it being translated from another language, as the potential source languages of the Book of Mormon did not have such syntax. It is the result of that aspect of earlier English being used in the English-language translation that the Lord carried out.