Even The Dictionary Is Taking Potshots At Donald Trump — ‘Unpresidented’ [Opinion]
Long before Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, the results were predicted to be a historical event. Of course, that was primarily by people who thought the United States would be electing the first person to hold the title Madame President. Instead, perhaps the word for the entire proceeding over the past two years is “unprecedented.”
From Donald Trump’s political appointments to his social media habits, there’s little about the President-elect’s behavior that hasn’t been questioned as unpresidential and possibly even a risk to national security. His behavior and words have led to numerous op-eds about Trump reminding people of their abusive exes. (This one from Everyday Feminism and this one from Thought Catalog are only two examples.)
The consensus, at least among those who aren’t supporters, is that Trump is a thin-skinned bully who lashes out at others, typically without thinking before he speaks, and in the act, makes a mockery of himself — and the nation that elected him. As such, mocking these behaviors has become a bit of a national pastime.
His Twitter feed, in particular, has provided the public with a never-ending source of eye-rolls, groans, and laughs. Okay, let’s be honest: everyone, even the candidate you admire, has typos, misspeaks, and is capable of stumbling over a word, or using the wrong word. Nobody is forgetting “57 states.”
The volume of tweeted horror and hilarity we’ve seen from Donald Trump, however, is not only unpresidential, but unprecedented. Or unpresidented?
In the early hours of Saturday morning, Trump tweeted about a certain incident with China and a naval drone. Unfortunately, Trump misspelled “unprecedented” as “unpresidented.” Though he later deleted the tweet, archive.is saved it for posterity.
China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters — rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act.
Maybe Donald Trump really didn’t know how to spell the word precedent or maybe he was typing during an exhausting bout of insomnia and thinking about being ‘presidential’ and crossed the words together. As the Independent noted months ago, it’s hardly the first error in a Trump tweet. Either way, the internet pounced.
If you’re the president-elect and you’re getting publicly mocked by celebrities, social media users, and political comedians, it’s just another day in partisan America. However, if even the Merriam-Webster dictionary takes time out to poke fun at you, you might want to invest in a spell-check program, or hire a proofreader.
Good morning! The #WordOfTheDay is…not 'unpresidented'. We don't enter that word. That's a new one. https://t.co/BJ45AtMNu4
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) December 17, 2016
Donald Trump (or a staff member) deleted the original tweet, and replaced it with a corrected version, but not before “unpresidented” became, despite Merriam-Webster’s refusal to make it official, very much the word of the day.
China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2016
Trump deleted it, but not before I saved it. Freudian slip? We can all hope he, too, soon will be "unpresidented." #LearnToSpell pic.twitter.com/tRjYEYVMJl
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) December 17, 2016
TrumpSpellCheck™?
Unpresidentedly effective. pic.twitter.com/9leL9aIei1— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 17, 2016
America didn't vote, they flipped to a new reality show called
"Celebrity POTUS."It ends when the star is told "You're #unpresidented."
— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) December 18, 2016
It's totally #unpresidented having a president so smart he doesn't need intelligence briefings but so dumb he doesn't know how to spell.
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) December 17, 2016
Even Trump supporters found “unpresidented” worthy of a laugh, though they obviously engaged in some redirection of the term.
Obama is #unpresidented. Thank God.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) December 18, 2016
The response to Trump’s ‘unpresidented’ tweet wasn’t all fun and games, though — some used the hashtag #unpresidented, as it gained popularity through the mass of mockery, to remind us that Donald Trump and this election are still serious business, and that the electoral college has not yet made it official.
ICYMI How the Electoral College was designed to make certain that the unqualified like Trump would be #Unpresidented pic.twitter.com/lBCaVnXy3o
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) December 18, 2016
That’s a good thing, too — because even though Donald Trump’s mistweet was pretty funny, while we were all laughing at his very Freudian slip, the current U.S. government was taking diplomatic actions. According to the New York Times, by Saturday evening talks were already moving along and a discussion was opened about exactly how the return of the drone will be managed.
Donald Trump’s response? Another Twitter tantrum.
We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2016
Based on Donald Trump’s track record when criticized, perhaps tomorrow we can expect a tweet calling the dictionary biased and overrated.
[Featured Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images]