Criticizing the grammar in the tweets of the current White House occupant seems like swinging at the lowest of low-hanging fruit, but there are Americans reading his misspealings and random CapitalizatIons and thinking they are normal. Many adults can laugh off his constant abuse of the language, but think of those who look toward him as "a very smart person," and think, God forbid, of the children who might be reading his tweets and repeating his grammatical examples in their school assignments.
Today the topic is commas because of two howling errors in recent tweets (and I'm making an effort to not look at all of his 280-character presidential pronouncements, so these are two found at random).
This morning came the "Just call me Kate" tweet:
Some things just don’t get any crazier. Just call me Kate, problem over! https://t.co/86SCqZ05ZG
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 2, 2020
And two days ago he tweeted about his son, Donald, [sic] and his "important new book":
My son, Donald, just wrote a really important new book, “Liberal Privilege”, talking, with great knowledge, of our world today. Lets make him a number one bestseller, again! @DonaldJTrumpJr @seanhannity
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2020
The error in first tweet should be obvious. He is asking all of us to call him Kate. If he were asking someone named Kate to call him, he should have included a comma before her name to show that she is the one being addressed. But wouldn't it be wonderful if simply calling him Kate would solve all our problems?
Your use of commas suggests that you have only one son.
— True Blue Liberal - #BidenHarris2020 (@TrueBlueLiberal) September 1, 2020
Hire a copyeditor (unless this is your subtle way of telling us that Gary Busey really is Eric's father).
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