Donald Trump is teaching Americans lots of new words

Donald Trump certainly has a unique way of speaking. — (Image credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Donald Trump speaks at the level of a fourth grader, but he — and his fellow politicos on both sides of the aisle — are indirectly teaching Americans lots of new words.

Merriam-Webster maintains a list of trending words and phrases in its online dictionary, and in recent entries the political influence is clear:

(Merriam-Webster)

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For instance, President Obama's SCOTUS nomination of Merrick Garland, a summa cum laude Harvard grad, prompted interest in that academic ranking system. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's endorsement of Trump led to searches for the meaning of "pussyfooting," and Trump himself occasioned curiosity about words like "tycoon," "disavow," trumpery," "fascism," and "malleable."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.