Steven Pinker thinks that Justice Roberts flubbed...

Steven Pinker thinks that Justice Roberts flubbed the presidential oath on Tuesday because his inner militant grammarian kicked in. (thx, julie s.)

Submitted by crazymonk on Fri, 01/23/2009 - 5:00am.

Comments (5)

Modifier placement issues remind me of DFW.

I don't doubt that this "split verb" urban legend exists, but I have never heard of it and I have suckered several organizations into hiring me to copy edit.

Lorelei | Fri, 01/23/2009 - 5:50pm

Garner also has mentioned this origin of split infinitive fear.

The language log has analyzed the oath flub to death:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1039

They didn't follow Pinker on Roberts' historical hypercorrection proclivities but assume he simply made an error, thrown by Obama stepping on his line, then, since Obama had already said "execute", attempted to reinstate the word in the closest legal position.

They note a factual flub in the speech, too: Obama is the 43rd American to take the oath, despite being the 44th president. He claimed to be the 44th to take the oath.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1038

Jon May | Fri, 01/23/2009 - 6:14pm

Actually, Obama was correct. Everyone knows that Hillary Clinton secretly took the oath after the Lewinsky scandal. Bill was just a figurehead.

crazymonk | Fri, 01/23/2009 - 6:30pm

secret muslim.

jbg. | Fri, 01/23/2009 - 11:26pm

I noticed the following day when Biden tried to rib on Roberts by making a joke of his memory, Obama kept an entirely straight (if even disappointed fatherly) face and tried to give Biden a tap on the back to keep things civil.

Annie | Sat, 01/24/2009 - 7:47am