Aha! That’s what OOP means: Object Oriented Prayers.
I perfer to go to our european roots when someone around me sneezes.
I ward off the evil eye, back away and cry out, “Bringer of sickness and death!”
…
Would probably explain why people avoid me during allergy season.
First, the song and the original expression behind it were intended as prayers, i.e., humble requests to the Deity to bless one’s country. As, of course, was “God save the queen.” The imperative mode seems to be less than well understood in everyday parlance, but surely one can draw the difference between “Please be seated” and “Siddown.”
For me, the patriotic song of choice is the one produced by the Boston schoolteacher who took a vacation with her life partner back in 1893. The two ladies visited the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, being moved by the White City, then went west across the Great Plains to Denver, seeing the Rockies on the horizon looming over the Plains. And she was moved by the beauty of our country and its original intent to be a land of freedom and mutual love and tolerance, and apostrophized the country with a petition to God to grant it self-control and brotherhood in the process. You may know the song.
“Where’s your Jesus now, God boy?” --from a thread I cannot find now, but which I think was titled “What do atheists say when somebody sneezes?”
I don’t think it’s actually command. I think it’s the long-lost English subjunctive tense, which now pretty much only exists for “God bless…” and “If I were you…”
It’s a verb used to express a desire, a hope, a possibility, a theoretical situation. It still exists in French and German, but it’s mostly gone for us.
If I did get Whoos[h]ed, I sincerely apologize to the poster, however I still don’t see the sarcasm.
On the other hand, I’ve heard the exact sentiments over and over since September and I’m sick of it.
So I sincerel apologize if I took something to heart that was to be taken lightly, if not, my opinion stays.
Sam
That’s why when somebody tells freshmeat to “have a nice day” he tells them to “Don’t fucking tell me what to do!”
iampunha has it right.
Once again, I posted under matt_mcl’s name (hazards of working from your roommate’s computer…)
I also forgot to add that if it had been a command, it would be “God, bless America,” because the imperative (command) tense doesn’t take a subject, and therefore the subject is extra, and needs to be separated out.
And of course, the indicative would be “God blesses America.”
I like the subjunctive. What’s wrong with a verb tense that distinguishes between reality and possibility?
Actually, it’s hortatory, Hamish. (Once defined as “relative to the contribution of a prostitute to the Conservative party” ;)) While I too like the subjunctive, it has specific limits for its use, and this is beyond them.
The imperative mode by itself implies an understood second-person subject, with the person addressed named in apposition to it as a vocative, but does not mandate it. “Let’s do lunch” (aside from being tacky) is imperative. And imperative mode is usable for requests and offers, as well as orders and commands. “Prithee do me the honor of joining me for a glass of wine” is imperative in structure, but hardly anything in the line of a mandate.
Well said Poly, but isn’t it “imperative mood” rather than “mode”? And isn’t it really more of an optative than an imperative? As you say, the imperative strictly speaking implies a second-person subject, which the phrase “[may] God bless America” doesn’t have.
I have to say that the Spanish subjunctive tense has been my bane in learning that language.
Yes, GaWd, you were whooshed.
The hortatory is a species of the subjunctive.
It could be imperative or subjunctive, depending on the punctuation or inflection of the voice. The morphology is ambiguous.
I actually don’t think that it’s all that optatival [sub]I’ve always wanted to say that[/sub]. The optative is even farther removed from reality than the subjunctive, hence it is most commonly used to conditions which are contrary to fact or in secondary tense final clauses. Hell, I’d be inclined to argue that such a nuance hardly exists in English grammar or syntax. The context is what gives a verb its optatival overtones, not the morphology.
And only the second person imperative implies any kind of second person subject. There is also a third person imperative, too.
MR
May God put a pox on freshmeat for being a nattering twit. Is that better? If not, sorry - I normally only talk to God right before I nut.
“The wages of syntax is the death of threads”? 
God, get me a beer now. Please.
What about “if Jesus pleases, may he bless your sneezes”.
My muse is Leaping Lanny Poffo, the Poet Laureate of the WWF.
That was so well done, Poly.
I prefer “You are SO good looking!”
But he wasn’t even the best Poffo to wrestle in the WWF. Of course neither “Ooo yeah” or “Snap into a Slim Jim” would be appropriate after a sneeze, now would it?
So what does it mean when I say something like “Mr. Cynical kiss my ass”?