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I have seen the phrase "What hath alienators wrought" in the name of an article. Searching throught the web I learned that "hath" is the version of "has" in old English, but in the singular case (mostly used in the phrase "What hath God wrought", I guess it's biblical). Therefore, I am guessing that the phrase "What hath alienators wrought" is wrong and should be "What have alienators wrought".

Can someone tell me if I'm correct in my guessing or nor, and why? Thanks.

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  • "Hath" is not "the version of had". And I can't begin to comprehend what "in the singular case" even means. Hath = has, and singular case is not a thing, and cases have nothing to do with verbs to begin with. Funnily enough, the rest of the question still very much maketh sense.
    – RegDwigнt
    Oct 14, 2013 at 21:08
  • That being said, this is actually General Reference, but luckily we also have a couple older quesitons dealing with this, so I'm closing as a duplicate instead.
    – RegDwigнt
    Oct 14, 2013 at 21:11
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    I'd agree that 'hath' is wrong here. The sentence does appear to be an attempted but poor mimicking of 'What hath God wrought?', but 'hath' was limited to use with the pronouns he, she and it (3rd person singular).
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Oct 14, 2013 at 21:12
  • I'm sorry for the confusion. English is my second language and I'm not a linguist. What I meant is that "hath" is singular. Also, I'm editing. My intent was to relate "hath" with "has" and not "had".
    – Marra
    Oct 14, 2013 at 21:37
  • @GustavoMarra, brief answer: Yes, you’re right. ‘They hath’ has never been right. In earlier stages of the language, some dialects used ‘they haveth’ (or ‘þē haveþ’, etc.), but never ‘they hath’.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Oct 14, 2013 at 21:39

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"Wrought"is the archaic form of worked.

It meant also "shaped" (metal), or "planed" (wood).

I can guess what God has worked (in the Bible indeed, Book of Numbers 23:23), but puzzled about "alieanators".

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