Are you reciting the Pledge of Allegiance correctly?

At the May 23 meeting of the Okeechobee County Commissioners, Vice Chairman Brad Goodbread took a few minutes to review the punctuation in the Pledge of Allegiance. He said some people have complained that the commission appears to “rush” the pledge.

Goodbread said in sixth grade he learned there is no comma between the words “one nation” and the words “under God” in the pledge.

Because there is no comma, that means there is no pause, Goodbread said. The entire phrase “one nation under God” is supposed to be said without pause. So that is the way the pledge is recited before meetings of the Okeechobee County Commission.

The phrase “under God” was not part of the original pledge.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website, the original pledge, written in 1892 was: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

The words “my flag” were replaced by “the flag of the United States” in 1923, because some foreign-born people might have in mind the flag of the country of their birth, instead of the U.S. flag.

 A year later, “of America” was added after “United States.”

No form of the pledge received official recognition by Congress until June 22, 1942, when it was formally included in the U.S. Flag Code. The official name of The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted in 1945. The last change in language came on Flag Day 1954, when Congress passed a law which added the words “under God” after “one nation.”

The pledge now reads: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”