Please, Trump, consult the “English Survival Manual”

BY ALLY COTTRELL

There are a lot of things I could argue surrounding Trump and everything he has done, but that would be too long for this website story. So, here is a short rant on the grammar of the President’s tweets. I understand that most people don’t care about grammar, but here we go anyway.

On February 26, he tweeted, “Big dinner with Governors tonight at White House. Much to be discussed, including healthcare.”

The tweet seems innocuous enough. It provides some information without any words in all capital letters or proclamations of something being fake. However, since I’m assuming Trump met with more than one governor and not just one person named “Governors,” it should not be capitalized. Also, both so-called sentences in this tweet are definitely fragments instead of actual sentences. Grammar rule four in the “English Survival Manual” states as such. (Such books are handily available in the school store for a reasonable $5).

Also on February 26, Trump tweeted, “Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!”

First of all, nobody should ever use all capital letters unironically in any setting. It is unneeded. You can put emphasis on ideas or things rather easily by utilizing the words surrounding it. If that’s somehow not enough, though it should be, a sparse exclamation point can also be used (though not after every sentence, please). Just because something is in all caps doesn’t mean that the rest of the sentence doesn’t exist. The reader (hopefully) doesn’t forget the rest of the tweet is there just when two words are larger than the rest.

On another more pointless note, according to grammar rule 22, you should use a comma or pair of commas to separate out nonessential phrases or clauses from the rest of the sentence, which “and played up by the media” is not.

Fortunately, I think that Trump should be able to buy back all of these lost points by making the necessary corrections and hereby swearing to never again use all caps in a tweet as president ever again.