The flubby oath explained

Today's inaugural oath got bumpy, and I was among many who dropped the ball got confused about whether it was Roberts or Obama who originally dropped the ball. Benjamin Zimmer explains:

Chief Justice John Roberts' administration of the presidential oath to Barack Obama was far from smooth. ... the error that emerged from their momentary disfluency came down to a problem of adverbial placement.

Get the rest at the Language Log.

Hat tip to Carl.

More like this