"Steven Tyler Swears On American Idol"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/21/2011 10:06 PM, Barbara Need wrote:
>Unless you are a Quaker or ?Seventh Day Adventist? (or?).
>You can affirm.

Or an Agnostic or an Atheist, or perhaps Jewish if you've been given
the wrong Bible.  Or even Congregationalist in the old days (that is,
"dissenting" or Puritan) -- they swore rather than affirmed, but (I
believe) were offended by having to place a hand on the Bible.

And I think that some states have actually changed the wording of
court oaths from "swear" to "affirm", but I can't affirm to that.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org