A word from the presedent
US President Donald Trump recently misspelled the title of special counsel Robert Mueller on Twitter as “councel”. As I recall, he made the same mistake earlier. He has also misspelled the name of his wife, Melania, as “Melanie”.
This does not set a good example for our children. A report broadcast on CNN also said he has a fourth-grade vocabulary.
I don’t suppose we can impeach The Donald for any of this. The law says he can be impeached only for high crimes and misdemeanours. A few misspellings can hardly be considered high crimes, or even low ones. At most, I suppose that chaste legalese would label them “minor boo-boos”. But I wonder if the law can't be reinterpreted so that a sufficient number of minor boo-boos can be compiled into a misdemeanour, hence an impeachable offence.
A president ought to know how to spell. If he can’t, at least he ought to have the intelligence to hire a literate assistant to check his spelling before he shoots off his tweets. I’m sure Mr Trump would not be happy to see his title spelled “presedent” or “presidant” and would be especially distressed if “Melanie” spelled his name “Donold”.
Yours for a more literate world,
Ye Olde Pedant
