Adverbial Placement & the Oath: Things I'm Interested In (Installment #7)

Being the huge nerd I am, I really enjoyed this analysis. And, of course, I'm sure you all know that President Obama and Chief Justice Robert did a "do over" today.

The major flub occurred with the adverb "faithfully." The line should read:

"...that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States."

As Zimmer points out in his analysis (And who knew so much about abverbial placement until today?), the adverb can be placed in one of three places to keep the sentence semantically coherent:

"...that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States."

"...that I will execute faithfully the office of President of the United States."

"...that I will execute the office of President of the United States faithfully."

The Constitution specifies the first wording. Roberts, apparently nervous and tripped up a bit when Obama jumped in early, noticed he had missed his chance to get "faithfully" before or directly after the word "execute." So, he did the next best thing and added it at the end of the sentence. Obama seemed to notice the change of wording and hesitated. From there they just muddled through.

Good times for English teachers all around.

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