Thunk b4 u twit

Not only grandmas are grammarians. Even JK Rowling has pointedly insulted the orange Trump for a spelling mistake. (Trump tweeted that critics “pour over” his mistakes, when he really meant “pore over.” So now, they do pour scorn on him.)

But that’s not the first time Trump has embarrassed himself. He has made up entirely new words like “covfefe” (with no meaning, and never explained as far as I know, but related to negative press about him. Negative press “coverage,” perhaps?). In fact, right after the resulting social media explosion, the Donald taunted his followers with a challenge to try to find out its meaning. Brilliant.

The Business Insider and several other publications have already gone ahead and listed more of the egregious examples of his mistakes. (As you can see, while I wasn’t sure of the spelling of “egregious”, there wasn’t any crinkly red line that appeared underneath it, so my auto-spellcheck worked. Given that there are so many spelling aides available, why would the most powerful man on earth be prone to so many mistakes?)

Ah. Back to the mistakes. The Business Insider site lists “the possibility of lasting peach” (when he wanted to say peace), “council” when he wanted to say “counsel” (for advice, and not an assembly), and yet again, “councel”, which simply confirms the depressing fact that he cannot learn anything new.

That must validate the conclusion that he is unpresidentiable (now try to spell that, you incorrigible spelling brute). I already know that he can’t, because he tried to spell “unprecedented” by typing out “unpresidented”. (My red crinkly line alarm lit up when I wrote ‘unpresidentiable,’ but that’s because the program is not Filipino. We have a long history of sizing up political candidates in this country, and classifying them as “presidentiable” or not.)

Trump at that time tried to accuse China of stealing his toy. He tweeted “China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act.”

I guess if Chinese spies were monitoring him and trying to decipher his mind, they would have a very difficult time because he doesn’t follow syntax, grammar or spelling rules. Which might be good for Americans concerned about their security. Their safety lies entirely in his spelling prowess.

I’m part of the camp that posits that the right spelling matters. And the Donald, as the (much maligned) leader of the free world and temporarily occupying the post of president, is supposed to set an example. But all he’s been setting is a bad example. Bad. Very bad.

It’s not just spelling too. He’s called Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan as its president, and his favorite punching bag, the People’s Republic of China, as Republic of China (which, as you know, is Taiwan. You do know it, right?)

Well, he’s not alone. Our own government has joined the bandwagon in not paying extra care about accuracy, what with its official release on Norwegia, and using the Dole pineapple logo to banner its piece on the Department of Labor and Employment.

Should we hire proofreaders in government to save us from certain humiliation? Well, that, and perhaps make sure we budget more for education. We’ve all imbibed the theory that education is the best investment in our youngsters. By putting in all these ill-educated souls in government, that lesson now comes back to haunt us. Let’s hope the upcoming inheritors of the earth aren’t just meek - hopefully they’re better spellers.