While Donald Trump himself may speak at the level of a fourth grader, the controversy surrounding his campaign has had the positive side effect of making Americans brush up on their vocabulary skills.
The editors of Merriam-Webster's online dictionary have noticed spikes in research on a number of campaign-related words, and Trump, says Merriam-Webster Associate Editor Kory Stamper, "has brought up the motherlode of lookups." He has particularly inspired curiosity about "demagoguery" and "misogyny."
But Trump isn't the only candidate unintentionally making us a little smarter this campaign season. The release of Hillary Clinton's emails, for instance, fueled interest in "louche," a word used by one of her advisers to describe House Speaker John Boehner.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Stamper expects these lookup trends to continue throughout election season. "It's going to be a long, verbose 14 months," he said.
-
Trump picks conservative BLS critic to lead BLSspeed read He has nominated the Heritage Foundation's E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics
-
Trump takes over DC police, deploys National GuardSpeed Read The president blames the takeover on rising crime, though official figures contradict this concern
-
Trump sends FBI to patrol DC, despite falling crimeSpeed Read Washington, D.C., 'has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world,' Trump said
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
