The Kerfuffle Over The Mangled Oath

[mathpol]

“Oaf of Office” is the title of a funny column by Steven Pinker in today’s NY Times about how the oath of office for President Obama got mangled. An excerpt:

“On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Flubber Hall of Fame when he administered the presidential oath of office apparently without notes. Instead of having Barack Obama “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States,” Chief Justice Roberts had him “solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.” When Mr. Obama paused after “execute,” the chief justice prompted him to continue with “faithfully the office of president of the United States.” (To ensure that the president was properly sworn in, the chief justice re-administered the oath Wednesday evening.)

How could a famous stickler for grammar have bungled that 35-word passage, among the best-known words in the Constitution? Conspiracy theorists and connoisseurs of Freudian slips have surmised that it was unconscious retaliation for Senator Obama’s vote against the chief justice’s confirmation in 2005. But a simpler explanation is that the wayward adverb in the passage is blowback from Chief Justice Roberts’s habit of grammatical niggling.”

Pinker then goes on to discuss the opposition of many grammarians to the “split verb”, of which “to faithfully execute” is an example.

On the “conspiracy theory” side, there is the Tom Toles cartoon in today’s Washington Post.


I have an even more simple explanation than Pinker’s. True, Chief Justice Roberts was not wearing an overcoat, which may have affected his (epileptic) brain function, as he was reciting the oath from memory. For me, though, the best explanation is one of the following two choices.

a) He was so overcome by the historic moment of the first African-American being sworn in as president that he flubbed his lines.

b) He had a casual attitude toward the whole proceedings, due to the lack of “grandeur” of Barack Obama, the interloper who waylaid first Hillary Clinton and then John McCain.

My choice is b)

[Demit]

1. Roberts wanted to go where no man has gone before, boldly.

The split infinitive was something up with which he would not put. Asshole.

[Sal Minella]

2. Those of us schooled to avoid them do so automatically. No thinking involved.

[mzteris]

3. he's shouldn't have been so arrogant

as to do the thing without reading it, then.

[Sal Minella]

5. Absolutely, and I'm not trying to make excuses for him, believe me -- I just think his brain

pulled a trick on him that his conscious mind wasn't expecting -- i.e. he fully expected to be able to quote the line as it was written in the Constitution, but in the excitement of the moment his automatic language center took over -- if he weren't such a half-bright JERK, he would have anticipated that this might happen, and he would have written it out and read it.....and yes, trying to recite from memory was arrogant.

He's been whining for months about wanting a raise, and I just hope his Personnel File now contains the note "Cannot recite a simple English sentence from memory" for use by whoever does his Performance Evaluations.

[kestrel91316]

4. Completely moot now. Roberts got a do-over.

[pipi_k]

6. Probably just a genetic tic inherited from his grandfather

hee hee :evilgrin:




Seriously, though...I don't think I'd assign any ulterior motives to Justice Roberts. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was very nervous on a cold day...

:)