Not Ayn Rand — a garbled 1964 dedication by R. M. BevenseeR. M. BevenseeAssistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley (per his 1964 title page)
The real dedication is in Bevensee’s engineering book Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems (Wiley, 1964). It reads “my parents, Ayn Rand, and the glory of GOD” and has the serial comma. Quote Investigator ↗ calls the shorter, comma-less “Ayn Rand and God” version apocryphal: a joke made by an unknown person, probably inspired by Bevensee’s page.
“Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God” R. M. Bevensee, dedication, Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems (John Wiley & Sons, 1964). The comma-less “Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God” is an apocryphal joke version, not Ayn Rand’s words (Quote Investigator, 2022). · Verbatim: “This Book is Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand, and the glory of GOD”
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Ayn Rand. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the world of R. M. Bevensee — author of Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems (1964). Theme: "Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The genuine dedication (1964)
Work
Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems
Author
R. M. Bevensee, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
This Book is Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand, and the glory of GOD
Popular wording is a joke version
In the book the dedication runs over four lines: “This Book is Dedicated to / my parents, / Ayn Rand, / and the glory of GOD”. There is a comma after “Ayn Rand”, so it lists three things, not two parents. The popular “Ayn Rand and God” wording drops that comma and shortens the last item.
book
Scanned dedication page — Internet Archive (Duke University Libraries copy)
1964 — R. M. Bevensee dedicates Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems to “my parents, / Ayn Rand, / and the glory of GOD”, with the serial comma (scan at Internet Archive ↗).
1997 — A Usenet post to alt.books.reviews, quoted by Quote Investigator, gives “Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God” as a supposed dedication and adds “Whether apocryphal or not I dunno” (Quote Investigator ↗).
2005 — Richard Lederer’s The Revenge of Anguished English presents “To my parents, Ayn Rand and God” as a real book dedication that argues for the serial comma (cited by Quote Investigator ↗).
2022 — Quote Investigator concludes the comma-less dedication is apocryphal. It suggests Bevensee’s lines inspired an unknown person to write the shorter comic version (read the investigation ↗).
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Why Ayn Rand gets the credit
This is a grammar joke, not something Ayn Rand said. Her name is in the punchline, so search results and quote sites list her as the author.
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Popular creditAyn Rand Named, not the author
Rand appears only as one of the people being thanked. No source puts the line in her own writing. The first known version is a dedication in another author’s 1964 engineering book (Quote Investigator ↗).
✕
Usage folklore“A novelist who omitted the comma” Wrong genre
The alt.usage.english FAQ passes on a report that an author who never used the final comma “dedicated a novel” this way (AUE FAQ ↗). The real page is in a technical monograph on electromagnetics, and it does use the serial comma (1964 scan ↗).
✕
Popularized as genuineRichard Lederer, The Revenge of Anguished English (2005) Presented as real
Lederer offered “To my parents, Ayn Rand and God” as an actual dedication to show why the serial comma matters. Quote Investigator counts it among the places the apocryphal version kept spreading (Quote Investigator ↗).
✓The real dedication is R. M. Bevensee’s, from 1964, and it reads “my parents, Ayn Rand, and the glory of GOD” with the serial comma. Quote Investigator judges the comma-less “Ayn Rand and God” version apocryphal (Quote Investigator ↗).
Context
Why the joke works, and the irony
Copy editors use the dedication to argue for the serial (Oxford) comma. Without a comma after “Ayn Rand”, the phrase “Ayn Rand and God” can be read as naming the writer’s two parents. The irony is that the real 1964 dedication already had that comma. The ambiguity only appears in the shortened version people retell.
Linguist Laurence Horn joked on the American Dialect Society list that the marriage would be hard, since Rand was “a renowned atheist”. He added that the real “Ayn Rand and the Glory of God” version “is less funny” (ADS-L ↗).
my parents, / Ayn Rand, / and the glory of GOD
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Electrical engineer · author of Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems (1964)
R. M. Bevensee wrote Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems, a technical monograph published by John Wiley & Sons in 1964. Its title page calls him an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His four-line dedication thanks “my parents, Ayn Rand, and the glory of GOD”. It is the earliest match Quote Investigator found for the famous serial-comma joke.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Genuine dedication (1964)
R. M. Bevensee, Electromagnetic Slow Wave Systems (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964), dedication page. For the apocryphal comma-less version, see Garson O’Toole, “Humorous Serial Comma Examples – Are They Genuine or Apocryphal?” Quote Investigator, December 29, 2022.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/dedicated-to-my-parents-ayn-rand-and-god/