So Latter Day Saints should be saying it a lot more. Maybe they need an "And it came to pass" meditation. That is kind of like what scripture reading is, if you can stay awake.
I think it's evidence of two things: Joe was making things up as he went along, and he was a narcissist who couldn't take criticism from anyone. I mean, there's no way Cowdry didn't ever say "maybe we should take it easy on the "it came to pass" thing."
One of the most frequent criticisms of the language of the Book of Mormon is the frequent use of the phrase "And it came to pass..." That may well be a valid criticism of the literary style of the supposed translation, but that criticism overlooks the fact that the very same phrase occurs quite frequently in the King James translation of the Bible, over 500 times in the Hebrew Old Testament and over 70 times in the Greek New Testament. The phrase in the New Testament is a translation of the one Greek word 'egeneto' meaning "it happened." In the Old Testament it translates a word of four characters, pronounced 'weyehi' meaning "and it happened." It is not unreasonable to assume that "Reformed Egyptian" might also have had such a single short word.
I don't claim any familiarity with the word, nor how 'the kids' use it. But I've noticed on Reddit, it's used A LOT, and the users and abusers all seem to be fine with it; I've never seen a user 'corrected.'
Is it the replacement for "Dude!" or "WTF?!"
It just struck me, after your erudition, that "egeneto" and "weyehi" might have served old world people in the same way Bruh seems to serve a certain segment of the current population.
One might wonder what mormons think about how Elohim and Jehovah communicate, along with Holy McGhost. Or rather, what they assume, since thinking isn't really allowed in mormonism, unless it involves explaining something that doesn't make sense on its own...