While driving, I often listen to News Radio (630 on the AM dial). When they play broadcasts from Parliament time, I tune out. Not that I don’t enjoy the spectacle of apes flinging faeces at one another, but listening to it is rarely as entertaining as getting to watch. The other day, I happened to tune in right at the start and, before I had time to angrily stab the button and switch it back to Classic FM (hey, I might not be 60 yet, but it still beats bubble-gum pop), I noted that they commence each session with the Lord’s Prayer. Some guy with a voice like a bloke from the pub read the following, and placed his stress where I indicate it here in bold:
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed by thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
What a schmuck.
Are you implying that he was stressing “thy” as a subject and thus “will” a modal? Hmmmm….
It’s actually a good point – without punctuation, the sentence is a bit ambiguous. Perhaps we should add it: “Thy kingdom; come! Thy will; be done!” The second one seems a bit forceful, though – I mean, what if the big G.D. doesn’t want his will to be done? But that opens up a- whole -nother can o’ worms.
And how much art could there be in heaven, anyway?
Not really ambiguous in the manner in which it seems to have confused him, of course. He was reading “thy” as though it meant “you”, and thus taking “will” as an auxiliary verb rather than a noun (“you will be done on earth”, etc).
God doesn’t want his will to be done? I smell a contradiction here.
I’ve always considered your sense of smell to be particularly acute.
“You will be done on earth” could easily have a sexual reference in Midwestern US English. How about down under?
O bawdy Lordy! What are you implying?