Donald Trump himself has an idiosyncratic speaking style that relies on simple words and phrases, which worked for him in the primaries but may be coming up short for him now.
BEN ZIMMERWhen words come out of politician’s mouth that are linguistically incorrect, people see it reflecting their intelligence. Sarah Palin was called out for “refudiate,” which seemed to combine refute and repudiate. One favourite Bushism was “misunderestimate.”
More Ben Zimmer Quotes
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When words come out of politician’s mouth that are linguistically incorrect, people see it reflecting their intelligence. Sarah Palin was called out for “refudiate,” which seemed to combine refute and repudiate. One favourite Bushism was “misunderestimate.”
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Donald Trump speaks extemporaneously, often through stream of consciousness, where it doesn’t seem to follow a trajectory.
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Sometimes people are primed to hear in a certain way. When a word like braggadocious suddenly appears, it’s like, ‘What, is he just making that up?’
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Hillary Clinton has been portrayed as robotic, someone who is trying to approximate real human emotion.
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Weaponization of a candidate’s words against him or her is something we’re seeing a lot. The term Obamacare was used against Obama in a pejorative way, but Obama again reclaimed it.
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