Pepsi will remove the phrase 'under God' from the snippet of Pledge of Allegiance that will be printed on promotional cans.

See the email here.

No.

Someone confused it with the Dr Pepper removed 'under God' from its cans outrage email and a new outrage email was born.

Pepsi does not plan to sell promotional cans with a quote from the Pledge of Allegiance, saying:

FALSE RUMOR ALERT: PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE CANS (September 6, 2002)

We wanted to clarify an erroneous report that has been circulating around cyberspace for the past several months. Pepsi has not created any packaging containing an edited version of America's Pledge of Allegiance. A patriotic package used last year by Dr Pepper was inappropriately linked to this rumor.

So was this a deliberate hoax or just innocent confusion?

The Urban Legend Zeitgeist believes it was most likely innocent confusion.

Urban legends don't circulate just by email, they also travel by word of mouth. In this case, it is likely that Pepsi and Dr Pepper were conflated as the story was recounted. Since there are at least two versions of the Pepsi removes God email circulating, it is unlikely that it was a deliberate hoax.

• Urban Legend Zeitgeist: Dr Pepper removes God
• PepsiCo Investor Relations from PepsiCo

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