KOTA-TV reports that during her latest out-of-state trip, Governor Kristi Noem appears to have improvised some comment about “putting prayer back in our schools“:
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was in Des Moines, Iowa Friday, speaking at the conservative Family Leadership Summit. She made some waves with some barbed comments about fellow Republican governors. Noem also decried what she calls Joe Biden’s America.
Noem also said, “We prayed in schools, which by the way, in South Dakota, I’m putting prayer back in our schools” [Jack Caudill, “Noem Says She’s Putting Prayer Back in Schools,” KOTA-TV, 2021.07.19].
You can tell this prayerful claim is improvised by the sloppy syntax. Aping the unplanned style of a past incompetent tyrant, Noem makes an unsubstantiated claim (we prayed in schools last year? When? Where? Why? Because state government wasn’t providing enough support for pandemic precautions and robust online learning, so all teachers and students could do was pray they didn’t get sick and infect Grandpa?), then mid-sentence gets an unplanned mental tickle that she tries to turn into a flowing sentence. But without the sort of intelligent, intentional wordsmithing of which you’d think a college graduate would be capable, Noem can only slap on a quick which hoping to make a smooth connection, stumble through a by the way, as if acknowledging she doesn’t know the syntactical way to a coherent expression of the notion in her noggin, then surrender to her rhetorical incapacity and just start a new sentence.
To put the problem in terms Noem won’t understand, which needs to refer clearly to some antecedent in the preceding clause and then play a grammatical role in the subsequent clause. An antecedent is preferably one noun. With which, the antecedent ought to be the noun right before it. Which then should act as the grammatical subject, direct object, or maybe object of a prepositional phrase in the subsequent clause.
Given Noem’s lead-in clause, “We prayed in schools,” we would expect which to stand for “schools”. That antecedent could then lead us logically to sentences like these:
- We prayed in schools, which provide better education when everyone believes in Jesus. Here, which acts as the subject of the subsequent clause, just as schools would have if we had written the two thoughts as separate sentences: We prayed in schools. Schools provide better education….
- We prayed in schools, which I am defunding and privatizing. Here, which acts as the direct object of the verbs defund and privatize, just as schools would have if we had written the two thoughts as separate sentences: We prayed in schools. I am defunding and privatizing schools.
Sloppy speakers may consider the entire preceding phrase to antecede the pronoun which, but that can lead to confusion:
- We prayed in schools, which if directed by public officials violates the separation of church and state—Here, which can’t stand for schools, because it acts as a subject of the subsequent clause and is followed by the verb violates, which presumes a singular subject. To make sense of the phrase, our brains have to reread the sentence and accept the whole preceding idea, our praying in schools, as the thing to which which refers. But good sentences don’t make us reread. Instead of trying to weld two ideas into one sentence with one weak which, we may have to settle for separate, clearer sentences, like We prayed in schools. That prayerful activity, if directed by public officials, violates the separation of church and state.
- We prayed in schools, which I support. The default reading of this sentence is that I support schools; however, given context, we know it is more likely the speaker is saying she supports prayer in schools. But we have to work to reach that conclusion, and words shouldn’t make us work. Again, a rewrite (preferably well before the speech, not executed on the fly from the podium) is advisable: We prayed in schools, and thank God we did! We prayed in schools, and we should pray in schools.
But Noem couldn’t even tie that much of a bow in her blurt. Her which is a meaningless signpost to nowhere:
We prayed in schools, which by the way, in South Dakota, I’m putting prayer back in schools.
Read the part in italics. It’s a sentence all by itself. It does not use the which that introduced it as a subject (grammatical function done by I), direct object (done by prayer), or object of a preposition (done by schools). The sentence is a grammar wreck, a sign of poor preparation.
Further evidence that the Governor was just stringing words together without much thought comes from the Governor’s response to a reporter’s logical follow-up question:
We contacted the governor’s office to ask what she was referring to when she said she was putting prayer back in our schools. We were only told to “stay tuned” [Caudill, 2021.07.19].
Stay tuned?! The Governor just said “We prayed in schools,” which (antecedent = the phrase in quote marks) means prayer is in schools and the Governor’s putting prayer back is happening in schools right now. Stay tuned suggests the Governor’s putting prayer back is still in the future. Which is it, present or future?
More likely, it’s neither. Stay tuned is a favorite tease of the TV tyrant Noem apes, a naked ploy to sustain buzz after the speaker has let her improvised words run well ahead of the facts and that she and her team actually don’t have a specific plan or evidence to back what she said.
Forget putting prayer back in schools; we need to put Kristi back in school to study grammar and composition.
Whatever Cory just said, I’ll go along with. Whatever it was.
Noem was born in 1971, she was educated in public schools. When did she ever pray in school? This prayer claim sounds a bit like her claim that she had to save the farm from the evil Federal “Death Tax”. Neither holds up to the least bit of scrutiny.
Does her new world that includes school supervised prayer include mandatory recitation of the prayer? What happens to teachers, staff and students who don’t want to recite the mandatory prayer? Who gets to write the prayer?
Mouthing platitudes that give her base the warm and fuzzies might be a good strategy in a closed GOP primary but it will fall apart under the light of day.
Cory:
You clearly understand grammar much better than the governor. It is also obvious that you understand the constitution better. I’ve been taught and South Dakota for many years, I can assure the governor that organized prayer was never an element of public education. She knows that, but is simply giving lip service to the right wing wackos in her camp. If not, she is even more ignorant than we have assumed — And that is saying a lot.
I went to the same school she did, just a few years later, and there was never a time set aside for prayer. She doesn’t know what she is talking about.
A typical Trumpian sentence, which could be salvaged somewhat simply by replacing the relative pronoun with the conjunction “and.” But it is a case that exposes verbal machinery that rattles on without any thought process because ubiquitous “me” is the subject of every utterance. What facts she does try to include are always wrong, such as when she claims to have withdrawn from college because of the death of her father. He died two years after she withdrew from NSU. Her accounts never embrace the truth.
A which hunt?
Kristi Arnold did indeed pray in ninth grade Biology.
She prayed that Mr. S****o wouldn’t catch her cheating.
He did and when years later asked by Kristi Noem for his endorsement for Representative, he declined.
PS … I love it when you talk like this, Cory. #grins
“To put the problem in terms Noem won’t understand, which needs to refer clearly to some antecedent in the preceding clause and then play a grammatical role in the subsequent clause. An antecedent is preferably one noun. With which, the antecedent ought to be the noun right before it. Which then should act as the grammatical subject, direct object, or maybe object of a prepositional phrase in the subsequent clause.”
PPS … good one, O
so she wastes taxpayer money to fight cannabis because she just can’t let her precious state constitution be “attacked” without responding… but then advertises her intent (although impotent, as we know) to violate the first amendment of the US constitution? How many different ways does she have to prove her ignorance before even conservatives get sick of it?
O! Yes! Bring on the punnery! Let’s talk more about this wicked which.
Porter, I love it when I get to talk like that, too. :-D
Why is prayer important in school? Does it help solve math problems?
I’m fine with prayer in schools for kids whose culture and cognition is enhanced by this very American meditative tradition.
I’m not big on being pious, but kids should not be afraid of the bible and prayer, regardless of scientific questions that can be raised regarding some of the various dissertations in the Bible.
Interestingly, inasmuch as it engenders the right mental state for learning, prayer could help with learning.
The reformations in American religion should address scientific issues while stressing the importance of Natural law, and making sure kids know how important it is that God gives us our rights, not Fauci or Paul or Thune or Noem or Sutton etc.
We have a VERY good governor who is parlaying her difficult and unlikely successes into some very good things for humanity.
John, kids aren’t scared of the bible, they are scared of all the rapists who work for the church. And the government gives you your rights, not the invisible spaghetti monster in the sky. A right means that you are entitled to something, which if denied creates a cause of action to enforce said right. For every right, there is a remedy for denial. Rights are not “things my bible says are good or worthwhile.”
To parrot stupid noem’s point of view on cannabis (which is WAY more effective than prayer), here is my take: I have never met anybody who got smarter by praying.
You want to talk to your imaginary friends and beg for help? Be my guest, but leave the education of my offspring out of your superstitions. Help is not on the way.
sx123, prayer certainly didn’t help Noem solve her grammar and composition problems… the existence of which John Dale’s fluff about Noem’s skill does nothing to refute. She is not a good governor; she’s a rambling incompetent with no real policy plans or vision, just a burning drive to win another election.
Hey, John Dale, if prayer could help with learning, I’m all for you praying.
Kids, teachers, janitors can all pray in school. If a student wants to bow their head and say a prayer to pass the ensuing test, that’s okay.
If a teacher wants to bow their head hoping that somebody won’t shoot his or hers classroom today, that’s okay.
Prayers can still be said in schools. They just can’t be an organized event. If Noew wants to put “Prayer back in schools’ does that included Muslim prayers? Buddhist? Any religion?
Prayer doesn’t belong in public school.
Well, Good Heavens, if a teacher tried to lead students in prayer when I was a kid, the controversy would have lifted the roof off the school…Catholic prayer??? or Protestant prayer???..the town was 50-50 and, as they used to say, you can’t mix corn and wheat in the same bin. Public Employees have no business leading children in any kind of religious service and, public school as a place of compulsory attendance is no setting for such a ritual. I’m beginning to feel the same way about the national anthem…reserve it for solemn occasions, not basketball games.
Get thee to thy closet and pray in solitude as you have been commanded by a fictitious being.
Ryan – what do you do with members of a church that *shudder* also work at the school?!
Bob – your IQ just went up a half point reading my post. You’re welcome, but it wasn’t a big deal. You are a fruit. More specifically, increasing your knowledge is a low hanging fruit. I feel terrible, getting into a battle of wits with a person so disarmed.
Cory – come on the show and let’s respectfully discuss and debate.
I’m not a big fan of the church. My beliefs are my beliefs, they have not changed, and I’m not particularly pious. I’m also not interested in trading one religion for another. The left’s polytheistic warship of things on Earth, mostly follies of man, lead very smart people to the practical conclusion that it is okay to pray, and the Bible is a historical account and an instruction manual in many regards of overthrowing tyrants and putting their heads on stakes. This is mostly accomplished through achievement of a hive mind, which was done through the *ahem* alleged election theft. See what’s coming? I do ..
Good day.
Kristi likely is telling another tall tale, because she’s too young to be on the tail end of what was called “a silent time” dedicated for students who wanted to pray. You have to go back when there were junior highs to remember the last of that unconstitutional practice.
Unlike Noem, people around my age (almost 70) and older might remember those times. I lived through the tail end of the tradition at Patrick Henry Junior High of creating a “silent time” at the start of every lunch period. They use some sort of xylophone to clunk out some chimy string of notes. At that point your average eighth grade student was supposed to bow their heads and pray, or remain silent. Of course, your average eighth grade boy, rather than pray, used that time to make fart noises, giggle and generally disrupt those who actually could have prayed silently and not have to put up with the smartypants kids.
Here’s the point. A person’s religion is sacred to them. Making it a government mandate cheapens it in all sorts of ways.
Any student can pray in school. No one can stop a student from private prayer, such as what many students do before a math test and a particularly bad lunch selection. What can’t happen is staff at the school leads students in prayer, or the school or teacher setting aside time during the school day for prayer, or a praying student impinging on others’ rights through some sort of clumsy attempt at shoehorning their religion into the lives of others.
Do we really want godless, unionist, communist indoctrinators leading our kids in prayer? When it comes time for speaking in tongues and serpent handling, I don’t believe South Dakota teachers will put their full hearts into it. Maybe as a compromise, America’s Governor should have Scientology brought in to our public schools. At least our kids will be able to do their own stunts.
Johnny Rabbit Hole Refugee is a nut victim.
Well..we did have a little religiousity invading our high school experience…had a biology teacher who was a lay preacher and carried on about “Creationist Theory”…I argued and got a C…took the side of the dinosaurs which he claimed was “just a theory”…the world being 4000 years old etc.etc. Complained to the Principal who told me “For cryin out loud, you’re smart enough to know you don’t have to believe anything he says when he goes on those tangents”./..Ahhh Ha…the marketplace of ideas introduces itself….He coached B team basketball and would occasionally get wound up during his pregame pep talk and drop to a knee for a pious pleading with the Diety…”Look out,” a friend of mine would whisper, “He ‘s takin a knee…God cares if we beat Letcher??” A few suck ups who wanted an increase in their playing time would mumble an “Amen” while the rest suppressed giggles and looked at the ceiling hoping lightning wouldn’t strike in the locker room.Donald Pay is right…the public school is no place for preaching dogma. Kids are appreciative of spirituality and understand the proper setting for its exercise.
Maybe Noem thinks she can bring back something like the silent time Donald Pay recalls. But her Des Moines improv and her “stay tuned” response to the follow-up show she hasn’t thought the issue through beyond the talking-point level for her 2024 primary audience.
The line cited by KOTA and me here also adds more evidence to my contention that she’s really a bad public speaker, perhaps irredeemably so. The last GOP occupant made up for mangled syntax and incoherent composition by being loud, insulting, and scratching the id of rednecks and knuckleheads everywhere. Noem doesn’t play the loud bully well, and her pouty-cheerleader act (see the #SparklersSuck tweet) looks weak and ridiculous. Her only hope to salvage her campaign is to scratch those redneck ids with her cowgirl pageant act.
It’s so nice to see you are all for meditation in schools John Dale.
What kind of fruit, John Dale? Womb fruit? Or fruit, like gay? Unarmed as I am, I am still better equipped than you appear to be.
Ah, the benefit of a “work Experience” degree.
Dear Bob;
I’m getting kind of like a dried-up gourd made into a shaker that you find at an art festival in Tucson, Arizona vibe .. but it’s not very well made so it doesn’t really make enough noise to perform a gourd solo over Peter Frampton’s Do you Feel Like I do .. like it should. But it’s all you have, so you try your best to belt out the solo, doing a little dance to distract from the fact that the solo doesn’t really work. Then, you make eye contact with the 65 year old burnt-out hippie chick doing THE. SAME. DAMN. DANCE. It’s a tainted love, but an undeniable love as you’re not sure where her belt line begins and the bottom of her boobs start. No matter. You’re going to gift her the most amazing 43 seconds of her life.
*gourd drop*
Sincerely,
John
Mark;
“It’s so nice to see you are all for meditation in schools John Dale.”
Nuance is important.
If something that someone is doing makes them more ethical and more effective in the creative process and doesn’t hurt anybody or subvert human biology (among other potential subversions), I am probably all for it.
Sincerely,
John
Clunky syntax, all right.
I might suggest it’s a rural and idiomatic provincialism, an ellipsis combined with an attempt to not end a sentence with a preposition.
“We prayed in schools, IN which—–by the way in South Dakota—I’m putting prayer back in our schools”,
in order to not say “We prayed in schools, IN which—by the way in South Dakota—-I’m putting prayer back in.”
Lots of “ins” going on.
Damn, Bob. I’ve seen your equipment. And you wield it well. But calm the fuk down. Your sister knows how to dance.
It would be best for students who pray now or who want to pray if Noem shuts the eff up about it, and let students figure it out, if they want to. Students where I live are far more creative about figuring out their prayer times. And as an atheist and a former school board member, I’m just fine with students finding constitutional ways to engage with their faith as long as it respects others’ faiths or lack thereof. I do have to say, though, being respectful means not engaging in any sort of intolerance.
We always prayed before our basketball games (stood in circle and coach lead us in “prayer”)
Never helped we sucked. Or maybe good was busy helping the other team or whoever we played , they always won.
Well this just pisses grudznick off to the 3rd degree. Few have you have seen grudznick pissed off to even the 1st degree. Let me tell you, Jack, you don’t want to see grudznick pissed off to the 3rd degree.
Overgodders must be smote.
Well..grudz, you can’t be on the school board with an attitude like that…
Arlo Blundt writes:
As a traditional creationist Christian and former high school science teacher, I’d like to point out that Jesus Christ publicly recognized the Hebrew Bible as true. The Hebrew Bible directly implies that the earth was created around 6,000 years ago—not 4,000—and it doesn’t deny that dinosaurs existed.
Our public education system has indoctrinated two full generations of Americans into believing the Bible isn’t true, the earth is billions of years old, and we’re just conglomerations of molecules that came together by chance somewhere in the vast recesses of deep time.
This is truly delightful! A long day ends with Cory dismantling the Governess and one of her latest idiotic remarks and it sets off a string of – well, it’s hard to describe, but read the foregoing. It’s kind of a Greatest Hits of Madville. What’s not to love? Put it in the time capsule.
We knew this was coming when Noem ordered every school to post “In God We Trust.” And if most people understood when, why, and how “In God We Trust” became a motto they may be very surprised. It does not belong in a public school, along with any type of organized prayer.
You see, Noem and I don’t pray to the same God. Her God is frothing at the mouth, punishing children, people of color, and women who don’t wear dresses or ride horses and carry flags. My God is a loving God who forgives each and everyone one of us our sins and trespasses against others, if only we ask.
Religion is a very sacred subject and one that I want politicians to stay away from. Even Billy Graham Warned Us: “The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate It.”
TO M…
AMEN. Paganism has replaced and infiltrated the truth of the real Gospel Jesus brought to mankind. The hand writing is on the wall.
“TEKEL, TEKEL, MENE, UPHARSIN”.
Any religion is just as legitimate, if not more so, than what passes for magat kristianity practiced by what used to be the Republican party. drumpf is not god/a god!
Kurt Evans writes: I’d like to point out that Jesus Christ publicly recognized the Hebrew Bible as true. The Hebrew Bible directly implies that the earth was created around 6,000 years ago—not 4,000—and it doesn’t deny that dinosaurs existed.
There is no god, not even drumpf.
“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”
Mathew 24:12
Not long ago, this nation saw the senseless massacre of twenty kindergarten children at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, plus six other adults. The shooter’s motives were unclear, although it was reported that he was “troubled” and perhaps “autistic” and “weird.” His grade school classmates and neighbors are not surprised at all that his life ended this way. He seems to have been a time-bomb just waiting to go off.
Obviously, his actions in killing so many people—and children especially—show no love at all. One would have to be “cold,” without feeling, to do such a thing. It brings up another verse, II Timothy 3:2, where the apostle Paul prophesies that the last days would be dangerous because “men will be lovers of themselves,” and in verse 3, “without self-control, brutal.” It seems we are seeing this prophecy fulfilled in ever-greater frequency, as people seem to have less and less compunction about terrorizing and taking the lives of their fellow human beings. Under the grip of a merciless narcissism, many are losing their humanity.
Kurt, the God I don’t believe in is stronger than any public school system.
The God I don’t believe in would also prefer that his creations speak in coherent grammatical sentences and not make stuff up to curry favor with key voting blocs.
Noem has no concrete plan for “putting prayer back in our schools.” She’s just stringing words together.f
the Bible is a literary text — not a science text, and should be read as such.
I object to Kurt’s use of “true’ (in his description of the Bible). How exactly do you measure the truth of that document’s demonstrable false hisotry/science claims?
Well…I think Mr. Evans has illustrated the quandry a high school sophomore has in trying to argue scientific principles with a Creationist Biology teacher. Earth created 4000 or 6000 years ago vs. Billions of years ago…”Giants in the Earth” vs. Dinosaurs, Myth vs. Science…talk about argueing on different planes…15 year olds should not have to soldier on with the responsibility of advocating the continued March of the Enlightenment against the forces of Dark Ages Superstition.We need to enforce instructional stndards in the public schools.
I’d say the logical conclusion to be drawn from this discussion is that Kristi Noem says that which bears no weight whenever she gets a chance. Only Noemskulls won’t grasp that and say “WTF, Marlboro Barbie?”
I plagiarized the characterizations above.
“O” writes:
My comment above pointed out that Jesus Christ publicly recognized the Hebrew Bible as true. It didn’t say anything about my description. You’re apparently objecting to Him.
You obviously don’t unless there are some. Which of the Bible’s teachings would you say are “demonstrable” false history/science claims?
It’s precious that The Bible fulfills Kurt Evans’ soul.
John Dale, nuance to you is a a nice liberal shift to your world. Stay safe from covid. Sincerely Mark Anderson