No political commentary needed, I think: space force says it all, doesn’t it? (unless you’re reading this in the future, in which case this is what I’m talking about)
Space Force!
politics
Fire and Fury
You may have heard of this book, an insider’s look at Trump’s chaotic White House. I have some doubts about how true all the book’s revelations are, but some of them sound convincing, like Trump going to bed at 6.30pm with a cheeseburger.
You might known that the title comes from a speech earlier this year in which Trump threatened to “unleash fire and fury” on North Korea. Fury was an interesting choice of word. You could tell that it was one of Trump’s scripted speeches, because he normally wouldn’t have the vocabulary to come up with such a word spontaneously.
I Recognise You…
Yesterday, Donald Trump recognised (or recognized, if you prefer) Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get political this time. There’s nothing I can add to the numerous international condemnations of this move anyway. Once I’d finished shaking my head and sighing with resignation, I began to think about how apparently strange it is to use the verb to recognise in this way.
280 Characters in Search of a Tweet
…brevity is the soul of wit… – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Twitter again. Now we can compose tweets of 280 characters on Twitter, double the previous limit. And I have to ask: why?
Avoidance, Evasion, and Avoision
You may have heard of the Paradise Papers, which have revealed some of the figure financial dealings of the super-rich. Reading about them is interesting because of how careful the better journalists are with their use of language. Because, a single misused word can make a big difference.
Is Donald Trump the Humblest or the Most Humble Person in the World?
There may be one advantage to Donald Trump being President of the United States (only one!), though it’s quite a selfish one: he certainly gives me a lot of food for thought. Sometimes I really don’t want to write about him, or even think about him, or exist in the same universe as him, but he can be hard to ignore, particularly when he demonstrates his unusually dysfunctional relationship with the English language.
Last week he gave us another addition to the evergrowing list of did-he-actually-just-say-that? moments:
Son of a Bitch
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to get too political. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry’s got their hot take on Donald Trump, so I want to keep things focussed on language: grammar, etymology, stuff like that. Hang on, let me just have a quick look at Twitter before I write… He’s said what!?…
On Friday, Donald Trump, somehow President of the United States, weighed in on the controversial issue of professional American-football players protesting against racial injustice and police inequality towards African Americans. He naturally employed all the gravitas and diplomacy one would expect of his office, and said the following:
English-Language Thoughts 