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Dick,

Back to the OED Online.  The meanings for "help," "provide aid or succor," predate the oath formula.  The former meaning goes back to the earliest Old English citations the OED uses, the 9th c.  The oath formula does not appear till 1175, Early Middle English.  Here are the first few citations:

c1175   Lamb. Hom. 33   Ah swa me helpe drihten, þe ilke mon þe wule fulien alle his sunne lustes..ne kimeð he nefre inne heoueneriche.
a1325  (1250)    Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 2528   He ðat ðise lettres wrot, God him helpe, weli mot, And berge is sowle fro sorge & grot Of helle pine.
c1369   Chaucer Bk. Duchesse 550,   I wolde as wys god helpe me soo Amende hyt yif I kan or may.
?1507   W. Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen (Rouen) in Poems (1998) 45,   I hait him with my hert, sa help me our Lord.

As the first two show, the Old English word order option of putting the verb last, especially in non-assertive clauses, continues to work.  The Chaucer citation shows something more like modern word order, but the 1507 citation shows the older, more formulaic form.   Looking at the other meanings of "help" and the citations under them, the VOS order does not seem to occur after the 14th c., and so I'll hazard a guess that by the late 14th c. the expression "so help me God," with the older word order had become formulaic.  In terms of meaning change I would suggest that this split in word order represents a semantic bleaching of "help" in the oath formula.

Herb

Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN  47306
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Dick Veit [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 6:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Analyzing "so help me God"

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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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

To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[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<http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/So-Help-Me-God-Ex-Priest-Recants-Plea-187354151.html>]), 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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] on behalf of Dick Veit [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 1:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[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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