Thank you, Bruce. I actually was not puzzled by "so" or "in this" but by how "help me" came to have seemingly nothing to do with helping in the usual sense. Similar oaths asserting truthfulness like "As God is my witness" and "I swear by all that is holy" and even "May God strike me dead if I am lying" are more transparent.

So let me rephrase my question, which I did a poor job of posing: Was there a semantic shift that occured with "so help me God"? If so, can anyone shed light on it?

Dick

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dick,
Yes, though it has not changed meaning at all.  "So help me, God" => "May God help me in this."  It seemed you were puzzled that the phrase "in this" could refer to Avery's deed.  If fact, it appears that it does not.  It seems rather to mean "in this assertion."  In the situation of an oath, the performative verbs "swear" or "affirm" are actually expressed.  In Avery's statement the performative meaning "I assert" is not expressed but meant to be understood.  Thus the "in this," i.e, the "so," is referring not to Avery's deed, which he denies, but the assertion about the deed, which in normal declarative sentences is not expressed in words. 
Bruce

--- [log in to unmask] wrote:

From: Dick Veit <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Analyzing "so help me God"
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:32:34 -0500


Bruce,

Can you clarify this for me? Does this respond to my puzzlement about how a phrase whose literal meaning paraphrases as "May God help me" has come to have the sense "I swear this assertion is true"?

Dick

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 5:21 PM, Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dick,
The performative of an oath is replaced by a declarative assertion by Avery.  The performative meaning would be:"I assert that I did not, so help me God" so that the performance needing authority from God is the assertion, not the deed. 
Bruce

--- [log in to unmask] wrote:

From: Dick Veit <[log in to unmask]>

To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Analyzing "so help me God"
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:02:18 -0500


In the future, when I need information on any language question, I will simply write, "So help me, Herb!" Thanks, all who replied, for your erudite responses.

A follow-up: Since the phrase literally means "May God help me in this," I find it curious that it has come to signify "I swear I am telling the truth" ("Asked if he raped the man accusing Engelhardt and Shero, Avery said: 'I did not. So help me God'." [reference]), which has nothing to do with asking for divine assistance. If anything, the intent is "May God punish me if I lie."

Dick


On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 10:53 PM, Stahlke, Herbert <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dick,

The OED Online gives the following as the third entry under "help, v."

 c. In subj. pres., in invocations and oaths: esp. in so help me God, the customary formula in a solemn oath; and in God help him (them, etc.) , often a parenthetical exclamation of pity for the helpless condition of the person spoken of. Also ellipt. so help me, and as a variant so help me bob.

"help," then, would be, as the OED says, present subjunctive, hence no agreement.  The subject verb inversion would, I think, be due to the initial adverb "so."  We get such inversion regularly with negative adverbs, as in "Never had I seen one before," but it feels a bit archaic with "so," and I think it is archaic.  What's odd is that the SVI also moves the subject "God" beyond the object "me."  I don't have an explanation for that.

Herb

Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN  47306
[log in to unmask]
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Dick Veit [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 1:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Analyzing "so help me God"

Starting with FDR, presidents have appended "so help me(,) God" to the end of the inaugural oath. Can someone parse the phrase for me? When people say, "So help me!" they mean something like "I swear to God" or "May God punish me if I am not telling the truth." They don't seem to mean a supplicative "May God help me."

I would be grateful for an informed analysis of how the actual words signify the phrase's meaning.

Dick

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