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I think grammatically the phrase "God bless America" is wrong; it should be "God blesses America", don't you think so?

Graviton
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    Find out about "subjunctive"... – GEdgar Jun 06 '13 at 15:05
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    Nah, don't bother to find out about "subjunctive". God bless X is just short for May God bless X, which means exactly the same thing and is also a fixed formula. The initial magical May is predictable, and therefore deleted. Magical may is explained on the 5th page of this lecture. – John Lawler Jun 06 '13 at 15:18
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    Nah, find out "subjunctive". Linguists are doing their best to kill it, but just because it's not precisely the same as the Latin subjunctive is not a reason to do that. The term is still useful to describe exactly this mood. – Andrew Leach Jun 06 '13 at 16:14
  • A parallel case, often misquoted, is the refrain of Rule, Britannia, which was written as Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!, but is often sung as Britannia rules the waves: rather more jingoistic. – Colin Fine Jun 06 '13 at 16:15
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    @Andrew: If linguists do indeed tend to downplay the subjunctive, that's probably because they're more interested in what people say "naturally" today than in historical grammatical antecedents going all the way back to Latin. Nobody today says "John help us!", for example - this usage only occurs in "frozen" forms such as "Lord help us!". – FumbleFingers Jun 06 '13 at 16:46
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    @FumbleFingers Well, yes, except that something like "I suggest that he go there and try it for himself" might occur these days, particularly (if other questions are to be believed) in American English. That expresses a wish that the speaker hopes will be fulfilled, and if "subjunctive" is a suitable name for that form of the verb, then why not use it? – Andrew Leach Jun 06 '13 at 17:38
  • @Andrew: I suspect that in practice most people who'd use the form as in your example would be older and/or particularly inclined to follow rules learned from "prescriptive grammar". Most native speakers have only limited knowledge of such things, and today they're far more likely to suggest he goes* there and tries it for himself"*. I offer no opinion on the "rights and wrongs" of either usage as of today, but likely as not the subjunctive will continue to decline (so to speak! :) – FumbleFingers Jun 06 '13 at 17:46
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    @JohnLawler: I believe this is not historically correct, or is it? You suggest that this "bless" was originally part of a phrase "may...bless", which I believe is misleading. As Nohat commented: It is subjunctive, and there is no “may” which has been removed—it is simply a fixed idiom that comes from a time when the subjunctive could be freely used this way. – nohat♦ ↵ Aug 13 '10 at 19:18 – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Jun 06 '13 at 18:47
  • This may be a monkey wrench, but the expression "God bless you," or "the Lord bless you," or "God bless," or "Lord bless" aren't necessarily in the subjunctive mode, are they? Couldn't "God bless America" just as easily be a poetic alternative to "May God be pleased to bless America"? Moreover, could not the argument be made that "God bless America" could just as easily be punctuated as "God, bless America"? (Additionally, "[God,] stand beside her and guide her, through the night with the light from above"?) Just a thought. – rhetorician Jun 06 '13 at 19:57
  • @ColinFine Your link to 'Rule, Britannia' gives an error. – TrevorD Jun 06 '13 at 23:44

3 Answers3

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God blesses America.

This is the Indicative Mood. It is just a statement that God (regularly) blesses America. The third person singular takes the inflection -(e)s.

God bless America!

This is the Subjunctive Mood. Here you are not stating anything. Instead, you're expressing a wish. The third person of the subjunctive coincides with the infinitive. Other examples of the subjunctive

God save the Queen!

Be that as it may, ...

It is important that he be here on time.

Community
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Armen Ծիրունյան
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By saying "God Bless America" you are indicating a desire that God will bless America in the future. You could even term this a prayer.

"God blesses America" would be an indication that you think the blessing has already occured - or that the blessing is currently occuring.

Marcus_33
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It's hortatory (i.e., imperative; however, the use of the word "imperative" for the hortatory in this case might have undesirable connotations).

outis nihil
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