White House

White House in Twitter misspelling misery – but they’re not the only ones!

White House

White House in Twitter misspelling misery – but they’re not the only ones!

It certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by his critics, or just about anyone who uses Twitter, that US President Donald Trump is prone to the odd misspelling or grammatical gaffe when tweeting. Here’s a good example.

Oh look, here’s another one!

And let’s not forget this recent outburst about ‘Boarder Security’, complete with an omitted plural possessive apostrophe. He hasn’t even bothered to delete this one!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1008709364939677697

The phenomenon perhaps reached its peak in May 2017, when Trump infamously tweeted the neologism ‘covfefe’, with debate still raging over what he really meant to say more than a year on.

Last month, Trump defended his ability to write (making an error in the process) and said he capitalises words for emphasis. Of course, a skilled writer should not need to resort to this though, and it seems obvious that Trump has an unconventional and often plain wrong way of communicating.

The Trump typo bug appears to be spreading though, because in late July, the White House’s Twitter account managed to misspell something pretty pivotal – the name of its own country.

It appears that some of the most influential accounts in the ‘United Sates’ could do with having an eagle-eyed individual checking tweets before they go live, not least because these errors are so quickly pounced upon by the media. Spelling mistakes are visible, sloppy oversights that give a poor impression, and they’re therefore very easy to highlight among journalists.

Naturally though, what you must do if you intend to take someone to task over their spelling and grammar is make sure that your own is faultless. Sadly, the Russian-owned news agency Sputnik failed to manage this in a piece titled ‘Spell Check Anyone? Twitter Roasts White House’s ‘United Sates’ Typo’.

They’ll probably get onto their error soon enough, so here’s a screenshot of it:

Spell Check Anyone Twitter Roasts White House’s ‘United Sates’ Typo Sputnik International 2018 08 06 16.54.39

Have you spotted it yet? If not, consider the grammatical complexity of the phrase “was been left uncorrected”. Amusingly, the writer has noted that the ‘United Sates’ error is made all the worse for it being in a bold font, and in doing so, has made a shocking error of their own, also in a bold font.

Even the best editors make mistakes, and when they do, it can be hard to justify. Being an editor can be a bit like being a goalkeeper in football, where you can make several excellent saves in a game, but if you’re at fault for a goal, that’s all anyone will talk about. That’s why it’s so important to stay focused and remain a safe pair of hands, which perhaps means keeping the gloating at other players to a minimum!

John Murray

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