Believe on me: WTF?

[Wilson Gray]

"And he that believeth _on_ Me shall attain eternal life." Or words to
that effect. As an adherent of The One True Faith, I'm not
particularly familiar with the King James Version, but I seem to
recall that "believe on" is standard in that work. I assume that the
sign used "Believe on ..." in imitation of the KJV. The words may even
be a quote therefrom.

-Wilson

On 8/30/07, Mark Peters <markpeters33 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Peters <markpeters33 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Believe on me: WTF?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yesterday, I saw these words painted on the side of a building in Chicago:
>
>   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ..."
>
>   "Believe on"? Is there some trend in preposition use that might make sense of this? For years, I've been seeing student writers use "on" in ways that sound godawful to me. Anybody know of any studies about broader use of "on"?
>
>   Mark
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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