origin of the "Ayn Rand and God" line

[Mark Mandel]

Mark Liberman's latest Language Log
post<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2730>is about the serial
comma and a currently-circulating howler (to many of us,
at least), a newspaper photo caption:

> MERLE HAGGARD: The documentary was filmed over three years. Among those
> interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall.
>

He cites "the famous (if probably apocryphal) example, 'This book is
dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God'" (see the post for traces and
history), and a commenter
<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2730#comment-90015>gives the
probable original source, which is *not* a serial-comma case at all:

> The 1964 book, *Electromagnetic slow wave systems* by R. M. Bevensee
> contains this dedication: "This Book Is Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand,
> and the glory of GOD."
>

It's easy to see how that line could have been first quoted, correctly or
not, for the contradictory collocation of the atheist Ayn Rand and the glory
of God, and then spread, losing the glory and the second comma and becoming
the example of misunderstanding that it's know for today.

Mark A. Mandel

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