In William Safire’s NYT year-end column, “Office Pool, 2007,” he writes this:
“Time and chance will happeneth to all predictions…”
Safire is the Times’s language and grammar maven. Surely he must know that, in Old English, the proper declension is “Time and chance will happen.” If he were determined to use “happeneth,” he should have written, “Time and chance happeneth.”
This is the kind of mistake made by TV talking heads and pompous small-town editorialists. Shame on you, Mr. S.
