So few words, so many arguments. Yet the Pledge of Allegiance has never been static. On this July 4 weekend, Outlook offers 19 variations on the theme.

When we invited various and sundry people - diverse in profession, geography as well as background - to revise or even rewrite the Pledge of Allegiance, one told us the current wording is "just Yankee Doodle Dandy"; it could not be improved upon.

Another explained that she had "a problem with the whole idea of pledges and allegiances.... It's a paradigm I find dangerous." A third noted that, in such an exercise, "the line between treason and self-parody is narrow indeed."

But most, in the spirit of self-expression that we celebrate on the Fourth, seemed happy to walk that line. Here are their alternative pledges - some a mere tweak, others more inventive - crafted by people who neither found the pledge perfect nor considered the paradigm dangerous.