The significance of “under God” and the pledge

NBC just made the pledge newsworthy again, so I’ve dusted off this old draft:

What “under God” seems to mean

After reading The Story of The Pledge of Allegiance to The Flag, I get the impression that “under God” was added to alleviate concerns about expressing unqualified allegiance to the nation: Those who believe in a higher power might feel that expressing (or, rather, embracing) blanket nationalism is in effect serving two masters.

Put another way, the phrase “under God” seems to have been inserted to allow theists to clarify the nation’s place in their personal allegiance hierarchy, not to declare that “God” exists.

It’s a free country

In school and in public meetings, participants are (allegedly) allowed to refrain from saying the pledge. You know, that whole First Amendment thing. I had a friend in elementary school who was an Australian citizen and thus did not say the pledge to the U.S. flag; any other student could have abstained, citing any similar reason or no reason at all.

(We are not only free to not say the pledge; we are also free to say it — even if no one else is saying it. There is no abolishing the pledge of allegiance, even if it loses its official status. We can pledge allegiance to anything we want.)

We can also say the pledge any way we want. I had another friend in elementary school who thought it was funny to say, just loud enough for me to hear, “of the United States of Cuba.” This freedom can be used for nobler purposes, too. In the time it takes the masses to say “one nation, indivisible,” nonconformists should be able to squeeze in “one nationunderGodindivisible.” And what if they can’t? Who cares whether the group is in unison? Got liberty? Use it!

The truth is the truth

If the nation is “under God,” it is so whether those words are in the official pledge or not. To exclude a phrase mentioning the supremacy of a god is not to deny that, in one’s opinion, that god exists and is supreme.

Do we even need a pledge?

What purpose does the Pledge of Allegiance (in any form) serve? What are we saying when we recite it? In what respects are we promising to be loyal to the United States? The whole idea of an expression of nationalism that we recite together has always rubbed me wrong, anyway. And in this day and age, the pledge is just another symbol that expensive legal skirmishes are fought over. Will the nation suffer if we simply take this pledge out of the official canon?

Feel free to use these in your next job interview

Ain't stock photos grand?

I’m not actively job hunting right now, but for some reason, job interviews were on my mind today. Mused for a while and came up with what I think are sure-fire responses for two of the classics. I plan to use them at the next opportunity (potential employers: SPOILER ALERT), and you can, too.

Q: “Where do you see yourself five years from now?”

A: “I’m not too good at math, but I’ll take a crack at this. Average of 2 miles per hour (walking or swimming), 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year, 5 years. That’s about 24,000 miles, so in five years I should be back around to here!”

Q: “What is your greatest weakness?”

A: “That’s like asking, ‘Which of your children do you love the most?’ But I think I can narrow it down to four.”

A slightly more serious (but insightful and funny) discussion of these questions can be found here.

Raised “American” but may convert to “Logical”

An article in (or is it on?) Slate has hit me to the fact that whole cultures put their periods and commas outside the quote marks.

“I’m shocked, relieved and amused all at once”, the blogger said.

Posting by e-mail

Just because I can.

Shirt sleeve exasperation

How come my only choices for shirt sleeves are “32-33,” meaning 32, and “34-35,” meaning 35? I’m either Boris Karloff as the monster (sleeves 1.5  inches too short) or an adolescent wearing his dad’s shirt to prom (sleeves 1.5 inches too long). And why is it a range – ”32 to 33″? Are they guessing or does it fluctuate?

Sorry, ‘clean’ is not one of your choices

I know the object of advertising is to make audiences remember and buy the product, and that correct use of language is secondary. But sometimes incorrect use of language can make an ad say the opposite of what was intended.

The current ad campaign for Tide detergent features the slogan “Style is an option. Clean is not.”

They are trying to say, “Clean is mandatory,” and maybe most audiences will interpret the ad that way.

But “not an option” has another meaning that will readily come to mind for many viewers and readers, thanks to a famous quote: “Failure is not an option.” Gene Kranz was definitely not telling the Apollo 13 Mission Control crew that failure was mandatory. He was saying that failure was not one of the choices available to them. In my opinion, this is a much stronger connotation of “not an option,” and in any case the phrase is ambiguous. (By contrast, “not optional” clearly means “mandatory.”)

So the Tide ads could inadvertently be telling some audience members: “Style is something you can do. Getting your clothes clean is something you can’t do.”

Past-present confusion in headlines makes me tense

A little friendly banter about an article on Slate.

Unpleasantries

At the grocery checkout, the cashier says “Hi” to me without smiling.

I say, “Hi. How are you?”

She sighs. “I’m here.”

Why that is so irritating:

1. Duh. I know you are “here.” That’s why I asked “How are you?” and not “Where are you?”
2. “I’m here” is one of those cop-out phrases that says volumes without officially saying anything. If you refuse to tell me how you are, that means I wouldn’t like the answer, which means you are unhappy — so you want me to know you are unhappy, but you don’t want to be accountable for having said so. Lame.
3. People in service roles (especially at this grocery chain) are supposed to be focused on their customers. You should have answered the question succinctly and shifted the attention to me (“Good, thanks. And how are you?”).
4. When you act miserable, it makes your customers feel unwelcome and unappreciated.

Asking “How are you?” is what is known as a pleasantry, and it should be answered with another pleasantry. Basic manners, really.

Convicted by the media

Any good copy editor knows that people aren’t “arrested for” doing things — they are arrested “on suspicion of” doing things. Then the courts decide whether the arrested people did the things they are suspected of.

It’s bad enough when a person who is ultimately convicted in court is first convicted by the media. But in this story, the arrested person (John Kerry’s daughter) turns out not to have been DUI according to the result of her sobriety test, yet the headline at Us magazine’s site says she was “arrested for DUI.”

At a minimum, the headline should read “arrested on suspicion of DUI,” but a responsible news agency would make it clear somehow (in the headline) that Ms. Kerry was not legally intoxicated.

Scammers’ grammar

It’s offensive enough that e-mail scammers want to dupe me into sending them money. But if they really think I’m going to take this for a legitimate message from UPS, that’s really insulting.

From: United Parcel Service [mailto:absolveslun@rgaleatherworks.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:39 AM
To: info@adefinancial.com

Subject: Fedex Tracking N5421062126

Unfortunately we were not able to deliver postal package you sent on October the 18st in time because the recipient’s address is not correct.

Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office

Your UPS

Come on, scammers. At least put some effort into it. How about spending some of your ‘earnings’ to hire a copy editor?