It comes as no surprise that Donald Trump is not the most eloquent of speakers. His lack of command of the English language was showcased Monday on the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity.”
When asked about a potential unfair balance of coverage between Hillary Clinton and himself, Trump began to directly attack The New York Times, or as he calls it, “The Failing New York Times.”
“No matter how good I do on something, they’ll never write good. I mean, they don’t write good. They have people over there like [presidential campaign correspondent] Maggie Haberman and others – they don’t write good. They don’t know how to write good.”
Anyone with at least an elementary grammar level can see the irony here. But for the sake of Mr. Trump, I will correct the quote from above:
“No matter how [well] I do on something, they’ll never write [well]. I mean, they don’t write [well] …They don’t write [well]. They don’t know how to write [well].”
The word “good” is an adjective, used to modify nouns. “Well” is an adverb, used to modify verbs. To further clarify, a verb is a word describing an action, occurrence, or state of being. Common verbs include walk, jump, and – you guessed it – write.
A word of advice, Trump: if you’re going to call out a newspaper for their so-called inability to write, maybe read up on basic grammar usage beforehand.
Haberman herself took to Twitter to comment on Trump’s New York Times comments.
I think he means "good about him," to be fair.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 2, 2016
But perhaps the best reaction came from the talk show “Morning Joe,” who parallels the Fox News interview with a scene from the movie “Zoolander.”
Trump on the NYT: 'They don't write good'… #morningjoe reacts. https://t.co/yfzY553ZCK
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) August 2, 2016
Trump’s reasoning for these comments was because he feels the newspaper is writing far more articles about him than they do about Clinton.
“The New York Times is so unfair. I mean they write three, four articles about me a day.”
Well, Trump, it’s fair to say that it’s pretty easy to write stories on you when you make incredible gaffs like this every day. Maybe there is media bias, but maybe there’s more to it. If you really want to know why everyone’s writing about you, record yourself for a day. Then sit back and relax in your $100 million penthouse and play the audio file. It should take no longer than 30 minutes to understand the problem.
This is the potential leader of one of the most powerful nations on this earth and he doesn’t even know his adjectives from his adverbs. A study by Carnegie Mellon University found that Trump’s grammar is at the level of a fifth grader. Isn’t that even a little bit concerning? Do his millions of supporters really believe that global leaders are going to be willing to discuss foreign affairs with someone who talks like a child?
Featured image screengrab from video.
