One nation under God

[meg]

I strongly believe in the separation of church and state. During the McCarthy years under God was added to our pledge of allegiance. When the pledge is said, I just don't say the under God part. I say the pledge they way it used to be.

But, yesterday and today I heard first a Church of Christ minister then a Republican official lead the pledge in such a way that there was no pause between the 'one nation' and the 'under god.' I had never heard the pledge done that way before.

This is the way I'm used to hearing the pledge with the commas where I hear pauses.

I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to The Republic, for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Here and here are histories of the pledge. They do show 'one nation under God' without a comma, but I have always heard the pledge with a pause until yesterday!

Is this another deal like 'Democrat' instead of 'Democratic' as an adjective?

[flvegan]

1. Prepositional phrases, without commas

I don't know. Seems like someone might be pushing it.

BTW, 3 posts to 1,000. Congrats!

[patrice]

6. Whether you need the commas or not depends upon whether

the phrase, or two or more other parts of speech, or parts of a sentence are necessary to the precise meaning of the sentence, or are non-essential to the meaning and more elaborative in function. Necessary phrases or other series of words do not get setoff with commas. Un-necessary ones do. This can be relevant to prepositional phrases, but isn't limited to them. And this is only one of the functions of commas.

On edit: But I don't think any of that is necessarily relevant to The Pledge of Allegiance, because it is more like poetry, which has its own rules.

[flvegan]

7. So...

when are you coming over to clean the blood off my monitor, as you made my head explode.

My mom was an advanced teacher of English, and I'd swear I'm responding to her now.

Regardless, I have 2 words for you...

dangling participle

And only because it sounds funny.

[meg]

10. so sorry!

I am guilty of comma abuse. I just meant to use them in place of pauses. Can I send you some paper towels?

[flvegan]

12. I'll need some of those

Swiffer type things. Paper towels won't cut it.

[meg]

21. I'll send you a box of them

do you like the textured ones or just regular?

[patrice]

17. Just messin' around . . . .

Yep. Dangling participles are funny.

[meg]

9. thanks!

I didn't even notice. I haven't posted as much as some. I've been posting since January of 2001, if not a bit earlier.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. It's all stupid.

Pledging allegiance to a flag. Is this medieval stuff necessary? What is it for?

[meg]

14. and so it is (eom)

[FreedomAngel82]

18. Blame Frances Bellamy and his cousin

[NaturalHigh]

3. We were always taught that there is no comma...

between "one nation" and "under God" when I was in school.

[meg]

11. my fault for using commas instead of

something else to denote pauses. My point and question still stand.

[NaturalHigh]

22. I understood what you meant...

and I meant it in the same way, that a comma would denote a pause. We were taught that there is no pause, but in reality, there usually is when a group is saying it.

[patrice]

23. Commas are pretty flexible,

especially when your talking about the spoken word.

The function of the Pledge of the Allegiance is related to speech, primarily.

[flvegan]

16. Say it out loud, though.

There is a pause...

Okay, there is a pause as I learned it.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. Same here

:shrug:

[NaturalHigh]

20. There is usually a pause.

Our teachers tried to get us to say it without a pause, but it usually didn't work that way.

[patrice]

4. We said it ALL of the time in grade and high schools, at least once a day,

sometimes more.

It's always been with the pauses/,s you describe.

Running it together is ODD. Maybe they are just trying to make it not such a big deal, sort of like rushing "god" in the back door while the important stuff happens out there on their stages, i mean sanctuaries (you can hardly call them altars anymore in a lot of places). Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

[benddem]

5. I never say "under god"

either. The whole thing is stupid. Unfortunately I belong to organizations that say the pledge at every meeting.

[patrice]

8. I leave men out of " . . . for us men and our Salvation . . ." in the

Creed.

[meg]

13. I live in south texas

and we say a prayer and the pledge at every official meeting.

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Beats me

I'm Church of Christ but I've never been around anybody at my church during a pledge so I couldn't say. Sorry. It may be nothing. :shrug:

[liberal N proud]

24. What timing, I received an email today from a Christian friend

Going on about the One Nation Under God and all the polls, How it is important that we remain one nation under God.

This was perfect rebuttal at a perfect time.

Thanks