37
votes
What does “covfefe” exactly mean?
It's too soon to tell for sure...
This is an unprecedented situation where a head of state's typo became a widely mocked online meme. Essentially, Trump coined a new word and then openly challenged ...
- 22.7k
32
votes
Is "Fredo" an insult to Italian-Americans?
In my estimation, it all amounts to nothing more than an emotionally-driven burst of anger and frustration. Nothing worth parsing word-for-word.
[“Fredo“] is like the n-word for us.
That's a gross ...
- 4,378
29
votes
Is "Fredo" an insult to Italian-Americans?
I don't think it's "Fredo" specifically that's the insult. Calling someone by a name that's stereotypically associated with their ethnicity is likely to be viewed as racism. So he would have a similar ...
- 22.5k
25
votes
What does “covfefe” exactly mean?
It's most likely to be a typo for coverage given the context, though by most metrics there are plenty of more likely typos.
Based on an analysis of error distances, and taking into account QWERTY ...
- 21.9k
20
votes
What does Donald Trump mean by "bigly"?
He's not saying 'bigly'. He's saying 'big-league'. He uses what you hear often enough that sometimes in faster speech it sounds like 'bigly'; when slower he enunciates it as 'big league' (phonetically ...
- 72.1k
16
votes
What does “covfefe” exactly mean?
(update) It was a typo
Donald Trump has an unfortunate history of typos and misspellings in his tweets:
From the original source cited by the OP, posted 31 May 2017, come the following The ...
12
votes
Is D-glottalization a plausible explanation of ambiguity in Donald Trump interview with WSJ?
Overview
I'm going to try a little experiment here. I ask for the forbearance of my colleagues on EL&U. I want to share some data, but I do not have the expertise to interpret the data. So I want ...
8
votes
Is there an established adjectival form of (Donald) Trump?
The suffixes -ian/-an and -ist have somewhat different meanings.
-ian / -an can mean when something relates specifically to a person, but -ist is typically used when something relates to an ideology.
...
- 2,476
6
votes
Is D-glottalization a plausible explanation of ambiguity in Donald Trump interview with WSJ?
To my ears, 45 says "I'd probably..." with an unaspirated d, hardly surprising before another stop in casual, hurried speech that elides most everything. The word would that hangs in the air following ...
- 28.2k
6
votes
Is there an established adjectival form of (Donald) Trump?
This has already been dealt with at ELL, where they closed it as 'opinion-based' because there isn't a solid consensus yet. All the same,
it's going to be 'Trumpian' in official contexts.
There's a ...
- 10.3k
5
votes
Accepted
Why does President Trump add a second comma in this sentence to Kim Jong Un?
The letter combines two independent clauses, the second of which begins with an adverb:
Ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters.
The comma before the and is the standard comma before a ...
- 28.2k
5
votes
What does “big league” in President Trump’s remarks mean? Is it common to use “big league” in English as an adjective or adverb?
The following is from the Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/did-trump-say-bigly-or-big-league-20160927):
"Did Trump Say 'Bigly' or 'Big League'?
Both are real words, ...
- 8,523
5
votes
What does “big league” in President Trump’s remarks mean? Is it common to use “big league” in English as an adjective or adverb?
In a comment, Hot Licks wrote:
It is, of course, a Trumpism to a large degree. "Big league", in the US, refers primarily to "major league" baseball teams and games, or at least to adult baseball, ...
5
votes
meaning of Trump's "stable genius"
The word stable can have many meanings. When something is stable, it's fixed and steady. If you needed advice, you'd probably go to your most stable friend, the one least likely to act crazy or be ...
5
votes
What did Trump mean when he said that the US is like a "piggy bank"?
At some level, the idea of "robbing a piggy bank" implies something along the lines of "stealing from children." There is a trope in U.S. popular culture of parents taking small sums from their child'...
- 169k
5
votes
I always put justice now with quotes
Trump is referring to what are more specifically called "scare quotes." In writing, we put scare quotes around a word or words to indicate that we're saying it ironically. In speech, to intimate ...
- 1,768
5
votes
Questions about Trump's speech in Long Island
Strictly speaking, a riff is not the same as improvising. So the online Cambridge English defines it as
in jazz or popular music a tune that continues or appears regularly in a piece of music while ...
- 11.4k
4
votes
Accepted
What did President Trump mean by "crusty voice"?
Instances of 'a crusty voice' in the wild, 1831–1959
The expression "a crusty voice" has appeared a number of times over the past 200 years in the context of a (usually unseen) source of ...
- 169k
4
votes
What does “covfefe” exactly mean?
kerfuffle: (noun) a commotion or fuss, especially one caused by conflicting views. "covfefe" is how a half-asleep person would pronounce kerfuffle. The time of the tweet was 12:06am..
- 718
4
votes
Trump's use of "our" when "the" would do
With regard to inclusiveness, Winston Churchill did much the same seventeen days after taking over as Prime Minister on the 10th of May, 1940 (eight months after the beginning of the Second World War) ...
- 24.9k
4
votes
Accepted
"Hearts and prayers": eggcorn/malapropism?
Hearts and minds and thoughts and prayers are present in dictionaries, unlike hearts and prayers.
Hearts and minds , of biblical reminiscence, has probably gained popularity with the Vietnam War. ...
- 68.1k
4
votes
"Hearts and prayers": eggcorn/malapropism?
I think you have a fair reason to suspect that it might be some sort of malapropism or eggcorn, because it's such a cliche that's repeated so often, it's almost like a set phrase.
Wikipedia has an ...
- 12.7k
4
votes
Is "Fredo" an insult to Italian-Americans?
Trump was re-tweeting a late-night comic who is allowed to be funny.
In The Godfather (1972) John Cazale plays the brother Fredo. He eventually takes issue with the way he is treated as the less ...
- 57
3
votes
Is D-glottalization a plausible explanation of ambiguity in Donald Trump interview with WSJ?
Am I correct transcribing Trump's words as [ʌɪʔ ˈprɒbəbli]?
More like [aɪd̚ prɑbəbli] , with an /aɪ/ diphthong, an /ɑ/ sound, and an unreleased d (see below)
Is D-glottalization a thing for a New ...
- 906
3
votes
A question about one point of Donald Trump’s speech at Helsinki
Wow this is a tricky one!
To help, let's consider another instance where we might see this construction
I would rather clean the garage myself than ask that John clean it.
The subject is stating ...
- 1,082
3
votes
"Hearts and prayers": eggcorn/malapropism?
This is OLD old. Like, 1700's old. Its original context is that we 'lift our hearts and prayers to the Lord', often in song. Here's a 1740 example on page 3, a third down the page: A further account ...
- 653
3
votes
Is "going loco" a common AmE expression?
Is “going loco” a common AmE expression?
loco OED
colloq. orig. U.S. regional (western). Mad, insane, crazy; off one's head. Frequently in to go loco.
As in:
“A vote for Republicans is a vote ...
- 30.5k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible