Of all the possible complaints about Donald Trump, a limited vocabulary should rank low on the list, and not just because it’s a telltale sign of the elitism we’re supposed to scorn these days. But Trump’s language – in his speeches, rare press conferences, interviews, tweets, and tossed-off asides -- highlights the Manichaean view that seems to inform his beliefs and actions. (Manichaeanism – Damn! Is it more elite to define it or not to? -- was a philosophy that divided the world into good and evil.) So with a bow to Roget, herewith:
A TRUMP THESAURUS
Part 1
good (adj.) terrific, beautiful, amazing, smart, tremendous, uge, big league (aka bigly), first, best, most, greatest, very, very good, wonderful, unbelievable, like never before
(noun) tough talk, Wikileaks, wall
(pronoun) I, me, my (see above: best, most, greatest)
Part 2
bad (adj) disgusting, sad, disgraceful, dishonest, terrible, unfair, stupid, not funny, overrated, ugly, so-called, phony
(noun) loser, really bad dudes, radical Islamic terrorists, leakers, fake news, failing New York Times
I was all set to say there is no Part 3 when I came across this explication of Trump’s vocabulary at a recent press conference:
military operation (adj) stepped-up deportation of undocumented immigrants, emphatically not having anything to do with the military. “The president was using that as an adjective. It’s being done with precision and in a manner in which it's being done very, very clearly” (Sean Spicer).
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