Trump misspellings boon to dictionaries
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/03/2018 (3041 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
People are taking note of U.S. President Donald Trump’s habit of muddling words on his Twitter feed.
Every time Trump tweets a misspelling or misuses a word, there is a surge in dictionary searches for the “exact configuration” of the letters he used, according to data released by Dictionary.com. These searches indicate people are taking it upon themselves to fact-check the president in real time.
In one of his first tweets as president, Trump wrote he was “honered” to serve the country — a gaffe that sent searches for “honor” and “honer” surging thousands of percentage points over the previous week.
After the president accused Barack Obama of placing a “tapp” on his phones, searches for that word on the website spiked 46,000 per cent.
Trump’s homophone mix-ups — using “council” instead of “counsel” or “heel” instead of “heal” — also have sent searches spiking.
These searches are one example of how dictionaries with online search functions, like Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster, have become an increasingly visible presence in the digital age as they are better able to track what people are searching for. And they reflect how the Trump era impacts the massive flow of information every day online.
“People love telling other people that they are wrong on the internet,” said Jane Solomon at Dictionary.com.
— Washington Post
