Trump.45 really does deserve to publish his own lexicographic dictionary. I will dub it “The Donald J. Trump Unabridged Dictionary of American English Political Discourse” for him, in anticipation of its welcome release when his Presidential time ends. He is most welcome to use this provisional name, in whole or in part. Or he could just call it “Trump’s Little Poli-D”.

A major logistical problem might be to fit the title on the physical cover shell of the printed version of the dictionary since it is very likely to be quite slender. This is due primarily to the fact that Trump.45, for a self-proclaimed highly educated man (evidence missing), has a remarkably impoverished general vocabulary reservoir, despite his own internal mental valuation. And his Political Patois, depending as it does on relentless, ferocious repetition, makes his functional vocabulary more limited still.

His reference work might comprise something like 800-2,000 words or so, depending on which co-author Trump.45 chooses to organize and ghost write the volume. It might look like a pruned down skinny version of the 40,000 Word Definition edition of Websters.

Trump.45’s volume could be nearly the same physical size, despite fewer entries published within, since he can take advantage of colorful charts, graphs, talking points, cartoons, short lists, and one-liners to plump things up and make the contents easier and quicker to digest.

Today, we have two recently intertwined word definitions that Trump.45 graced the World with in his White House Lawn Press Gaggle Friday morning, as he headed off in Marine One to attend the One-Hundredth Year Armistice Day Anniversary Ceremonies in France this weekend.

These new definitions are solid candidates for inclusion in what could become Trump.45’s Meisterwerke.

God Bless the memory of all our American and Allied Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen who served in World War I, the first War to End All Wars. May their family descendants be comforted that their forefathers answered the Call to Service issued by their Country to help preserve our American freedom and democracy.

Trump’s Latest Twinned Word Definitions

The two formerly plain English words (with common sense meanings) that Trump.45 breathed new life into yesterday were Comfortable And Hair, when used to define and describe the difference in Vote Counts for a Federal Political Contest. In this case, contrasting Senate races in Florida and Arizona.

Here are Trump.45’s latest linguistic contributions to our American political argot.

A Comfortable (n.) = 12,562 votes

A Hair (n.)= 20,203 votes

A Little Background

The 2018 Senate race in Florida is uncalled. Republican Rick Scott is currently the leader, as of noon today, by 12,562 votes over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson. The difference between them (out of 8.2 million votes cast) is less than 0.2%, and thus a statewide mandatory hand recount of ballots is required under Florida state law, and will begin shortly.

Trump.45 was anxious to weigh in and pontificate yesterday on the lawn. Here is a transcript of part of his Florida voting related comments.

This transcript is taken from the marvelous archive of Trump.45 political and related materials at Factbase:

And Rick Scott, who won by — you know, it was close, but he won by a comfortable margin — every couple of hours it goes down a little bit. And then you see the people, and they were involved with that fraud of the fake dossier, the phony dossier. And I guess I hear they were somehow involved or worked with the GPS Fusion people, who have committed — I mean, if you look at what they’ve done, you look at the dishonesty — Look, look, there’s — bad things have gone on in Broward County.

For Trump Dictionary definition purposes, here is the word in plain TrumpSpeak:

A Comfortable (n.) = 12,562 votes

Arizona Version

The 2018 Senate race in Arizona is likewise uncalled. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is currently the vote leader, as of noon today, by 20,203 votes over Republican candidate Martha McSally. The difference  (out of 2.0 million votes cast) is 1.0%, though not all votes have been counted yet; four precincts have not reported and there are quite a number of mail-in and voting day drop-off ballots that are being processed, as per state regulations.

In Arizona, a potential recount would only be triggered if the final reported margin is less than 0.1%. That appears unlikely at this point, since most of the uncounted ballots are from Maricopa and Pima counts, both large and distinctly Democratic voter strongholds.

Yesterday Trump.45 was equally anxious to weigh in and pontificate on the lawn about Arizona’s election. Here is a transcript of his Arizona voting related comments.

Again taken from the marvelous archive of Trump.45 political and related materials at Factbase:

There’s a lot of crooked stuff going on. But it is interesting; it always seems to go the way of the Democrats. Now, in Arizona, all of a sudden, out of the wilderness, they find a lot of votes. And she’s — the other candidate is just winning by a hair. What’s going on in a Florida is a disgrace. Go down and see what happened over the last period of time — 10 years.

For Trump Dictionary definition purposes, here is the second word in plain TrumpSpeak

A Hair (n.) = 20,203 votes

Comment on Lexicography

Lexicography* is a good English word coined in 1680, with strong European roots (like the Trump family). The word is derived from the Greek term meaning “of or for words”, and thus shares an admired place in the Western Canon,** which Trump.45 so admires.

There can be scholarly debate about how personally familiar Trump.45 might be himself with the contents and niceties of the Western Canon, but he has an intuitive feel for some aspects. Trump.45’s recent proud public declaration that he is a Nationalist exhibits both his underlying philosophical tendencies, and his limited grasp of the history involved in the meaning and use of that term in modern discourse.

But let us consider Trump.45’s fertile use of the Ordinal words ‘comfortable’ and ‘hair’ to define and characterize a Cardinal numerical difference.

One of the more difficult aspects of learning primary mathematics concepts in grammar school is to appreciate the difference between Cardinal and Ordinal when used to discuss numerical relationships. For those who have forgotten, or prefer not to fool around with them, Cardinal numbers are natural numbers used to measure the cardinality (size) of sets. We are talking about 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on.

Ordinal numbers is one generalization of the concept of a natural number used to describe a way to arrange a collection of objects in order, one after another, or to describe the position of an element in a sequence. Here we are talking about first, second, third, fourth, and so on.

This is the sort of stuff linguists, mathematicians, and philosophers enjoy and wrestle with professionally. I leave further technical description to experts, which I am most certainly not.

But Trump.45 has introduced a surprisingly sophisticated concept into the twinned word definitions he has made to compare vote counts in Florida and Arizona. He just threw a high hard one at the unsuspecting batter (reader).

There is however, a common usage related sticking point in this celebratory word fest. Fourth graders know that a comfortable is bigger than a hair. Everybody understands that concept of quantity. You’d always much rather have a generous slice of Apple Pie than a sliver. That’s Ordinal World.

Every 4thgrader also knows that 20,000 of something is a lot more than 12,500 of the same thing. For example, if you were passing out piles of dollar bills, only someone not paying attention would head for the 12,000 dollar bill containing pile of money first. That’s Cardinal Territory.

But Trump.45 has his ordinal and cardinal frames of reference mixed up, essentially in reverse. His political definitions are backwards and confused. They reflect illogical thinking. They are poorly thought out.

As such, in the Trump.45 version of Alternate Facts, his political definitions of Comfortable and Hair make perfect sense, and fit squarely within his mental verbal schemes.

I suppose it might be possible to construct some artificial circumstance in which the inverted application of terms might be semi-appropriate. For example, maybe a Florida vote is worth twice as much as an Arizona vote, because there are more of them. But that is problematic since each state no matter how small or sparsely populated gets the same number (exactly two) of U.S. Senate seats. Quibbling with this hallowed distribution would be unconstitutional (unless Trump.45 gloms onto the idea of making it go away with one of his Magical Presidential Executive Orders.

And there is always that pesky One Man, One Vote thing that acts as a speed bump on the road to Trumpian Peace and Prosperity for All.

Maybe Kavanaugh could figure out some clever way to argue such an interpretation was the Founders’ Original Intent). Actually, the real math is that Florida votes, on a per capita value basis, are worth lessthan Arizona votes, since there are less Arizona votes, but they get the same two Senate seats.

As the nearly complete voting totals demonstrate in real numbers, it takes about 4 million Florida votes to win a Senate seat, and only about 1 million Arizona votes. So the situation is even worse from a Trumpian analysis.

Further, if you dig too deeply, it turns this overvaluation of small state votes reflected in the uneven distribution of Electoral College voting power has a lot to do with why Trump.45 snuck into office as President in the first place, while he got bombed in the actual National Popular Vote, losing by 3 million citizen voices. Better switch analytic gears.

You might also argue that Republican votes in Florida are inherently more worthwhile than Democratic votes when Republicans are in the lead, and that Democratic votes in Arizona are worth less than Republican votes when they are in the lead. You could probably shoehorn that concept into a workable scenario for the current Florida and Arizona votes to fit in with Trump.45’s valuable Ordinal assessments. However, the math quickly gets complicated and becomes too much work to make everything fir correctly. Not exactly Trump.45’s long suit.

Or else Trump.45 was having a bad hair day and just got the words mixed up for a minute while he waxed eloquent. It could happen to anybody.

Otherwise, in the real world most of us inhabit, his thought processes and insights about the size and import of voting leads just don’t make any sense. Not to mention the icing overlay of evidence-free conspiracy theories about fraud.

These two definitions still belong as anchor points in Trump’s Unabridged American English Political Dictionary anyway. They help to commemorate his linguistic facility and lexicographic eloquence.

After all, Donald J. Trump is the 45thPresident of these United States, so he must be Right. You Can Always Trust Him. He said just last week that he always tries to tell the Truth, when he can. How comforting those soothing words are for America.

Summary

Unfortunately for Trump.45 and the Republicans, despite his brave attempt to puff up Scott’s preliminary vote lead, his current margin is so low it will trigger a statewide vote recount. I believe it is actually the first one in Florida history. The Bush-Gore 2000 Mess involved a recount in only four Florida counties, so Trump.45 may have managed to get involved in yet another unwanted political first.

As for Arizona, despite Trump.45’s brave sally forth to downplay the Democratic lead in that so-far uncalled Senate race, the 20,000 plus lead is quire likely to hold up (or even grow), and Arizona state law does not contemplate any vote recount unless the margin of victory percentage is much smaller (0.1).

Thus sometime in the next couple of weeks (depending on how long the agonizing Florida legal battles are stretched out by political combatants), the Democrats will pick up a Senate seat in Arizona, and the Republicans may knock off a endangered Democratic incumbent, after expenditure of much blood, treasure, and time away from pursuit of #MAGA. A likely stalemate for control of U.S. Senate Seats 98 & 99.

The only 2018 Senatorial election business left for the 116thCongress will be the Mississippi runoff in December between interim Senator (since April, 2018) Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith (41.5%) and Democratic challenger Democrat Mike Espy (40.6%).

That ought to be a no brainer in bright red Mississippi, Queen of the South. Except, not quite so fast. Due to some peculiarities and a resignation by the senior Senator Thad Cochran earlier this year due to serious health problems, Mississippi voters get to choose two Senators in the same year. Weird and very unusual. Mississippians have already supported Trump.45 this year by returning Roger Wicker with a very healthy vote count (59%) only last week.

It is just possible that the good folks in Mississippi might choose to hedge their bets and send a well-known conservative Democrat to the Senate (who was elected 4 times as a Congressman from Mississippi in the past) for their second bite of the Apple. This is also a Man-Woman contest, as well as a Black-White face-off. The election will be on November 27, five days after Thanksgiving, when people don’t expect elections, so the typical Red Turnout may be further muted.

The Republicans already are in control of the Senate, whatever may happen in Mississippi, and Hyde-Smith is not a well-known political force in Mississippi Federal politics for citizens to pay homage to. She has a de minimus amount of seniority in the Senate and no chairmanships. Trump.45 is cool on her because of her prior history as a Democrat until 2010, and her election would not significantly increase Republican power in the Senate (such as to guaranteed filibuster cloture possible).

And then there is the 2017 Alabama Senate run off late last year. In a rather more Trumpy Red State (62% Alabama vs. 58% Mississippi), Democrat Doug Jones knocked off Trump.45 supported Roy Moore, in a nearly impossible to believe election scenario.

Mississippi is likely to stay Double Red for Senate, but stranger things have happened in 2018.

You can expect Trump.45 to whip out and re-cycle the Caravan argument over the next month, or he may have some new depredation to complain about. But it may be hard to argue that Federal Court Judgeships are at risk, or that the U.S. economy will falter without Hyde-Smith. After all, Mississippi is two states away from anything like the Southern Border, from whence an invasion may be launched upon our peaceful shores.

And then there will be the Full 100 Senators in place for the next two years and the run-up to the 2020 National Election which has already started.

Happy Birthday U.S. Marine Corps!!    Semper Fi!    November 10, 2018

Remember and God Bless All Those Who Have Served Their Country in Uniform in Foreign Wars

(Armistice Day 11/11/18)

*From the Wikipedia entry for Lexicography:

Lexicography is divided into two separate but equally important groups:

Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.

Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly discipline of analyzing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for information by users in specific types of situations, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries. This is sometimes referred to as ‘metalexicography’.

There is some disagreement on the definition of lexicology, as distinct from lexicography. Some use “lexicology” as a synonym for theoretical lexicography; others use it to mean a branch of linguistics pertaining to the inventory of words in a particular language.

A person devoted to lexicography is called a lexicographer.

General lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of general dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that provide a description of the language in general use. Such a dictionary is usually called a general dictionary or LGP dictionary (Language for General Purpose). Specialized lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that are devoted to a (relatively restricted) set of linguistic and factual elements of one or more specialist subject fields, e.g. legal lexicography. Such a dictionary is usually called a specialized dictionary or Language for specific purposes dictionary and following Nielsen 1994, specialized dictionaries are either multi-field, single-field or sub-field dictionaries.

It is now widely accepted that lexicography is a scholarly discipline in its own right and not a sub-branch of applied linguistics, as the chief object of study in lexicography is the dictionary (see e.g. Bergenholtz/Nielsen/Tarp 2009).

Etymology

Coined in English 1680, the word “lexicography” derives from the Greek λεξικογράφος lexikographos, “lexicographer”, from λεξικόν lexicon, neut. of λεξικός lexikos, “of or for words”, from λέξις lexis, “speech”, “word”, (in turn from λέγω lego, “to say”, “to speak”) and γράφω grapho, “to scratch, to inscribe, to write”.

Aspects

Practical lexicographic work involves several activities, and the compilation of well-crafted dictionaries requires careful consideration of all or some of the following aspects:

  • profiling the intended users (i.e. linguistic and non-linguistic competences) and identifying their needs
  • defining the communicative and cognitive functions of the dictionary
  • selecting and organizing the components of the dictionary
  • choosing the appropriate structures for presenting the data in the dictionary (i.e. frame structure, distribution structure, macro-structure, micro-structure and cross-reference structure)
  • selecting words and affixes for systematization as entries
  • selecting collocations, phrases and examples
  • choosing lemma forms for each word or part of word to be lemmatized
  • defining words
  • organizing definitions
  • specifying pronunciations of words
  • labeling definitions and pronunciations for register and dialect, where appropriate
  • selecting equivalents in bi- and multi-lingual dictionaries
  • translating collocations, phrases and examples in bi- and multilingual dictionaries
  • designing the best way in which users can access the data in printed and electronic dictionaries

One important goal of lexicography is to keep the lexicographic information costs incurred by dictionary users as low as possible. Nielsen (2008) suggests relevant aspects for lexicographers to consider when making dictionaries as they all affect the users’ impression and actual use of specific dictionaries.

Theoretical lexicography concerns the same aspects as lexicography, but aims to develop principles that can improve the quality of future dictionaries, for instance in terms of access to data and lexicographic information costs. Several perspectives or branches of such academic dictionary research have been distinguished: ‘dictionary criticism’ (or evaluating the quality of one or more dictionaries, e.g. by means of reviews (see Nielsen 1999)), ‘dictionary history’ (or tracing the traditions of a type of dictionary or of lexicography in a particular country or language), ‘dictionary typology’ (or classifying the various genres of reference works, such as dictionary versus encyclopedia, monolingual versus bilingual dictionary, general versus technical or pedagogical dictionary), ‘dictionary structure’ (or formatting the various ways in which the information is presented in a dictionary), ‘dictionary use’ (or observing the reference acts and skills of dictionary users), and ‘dictionary IT’ (or applying computer aids to the process of dictionary compilation).

One important consideration is the status of ‘bilingual lexicography’, or the compilation and use of the bilingual dictionary in all its aspects (see e.g. Nielsen 1894). In spite of a relatively long history of this type of dictionary, it is often said[according to whom?] to be less developed in a number of respects than its unilingual counterpart, especially in cases where one of the languages involved is not a major language. Not all genres of reference works are available in interlingual versions, e.g. LSP, learners’ and encyclopedic types, although sometimes these challenges produce new subtypes, e.g. ‘semi-bilingual’ or ‘bilingualised’ dictionaries such as Hornby’s (Oxford) Advanced Learner’s Dictionary English-Chinese, which have been developed by translating existing monolingual dictionaries (see Marello 1998).

On second thought, after re-reading the substance of this entry, Trump.45 would have to receive a Mega Signing Bonus to enthusiastically lend his name to such a project, no matter how valuable his political insights would be. Eight figures at least. But it would be a handsome companion on the bookshelf to his wildly best-selling and prescient “Art of the Deal” (1975-1987). Trump.45’s written wisdom from the start of his career (1987) to the peak ending (2016-2024?).

**From the Wikipedia entry for Western Canon:

The Western canon is the body of Western literature, European classical music, philosophy, and works of art that represents the high culture of Europe and North America: “a certain Western intellectual tradition that goes from, say, Socrates to Wittgenstein in philosophy, and from Homer to James Joyce in literature”. The word canon is derived from ancient Greek κανών, kanṓn, meaning a measuring rod, or standard. The Bible, a product of ancient Jewish culture, from western Asia, has been a major force in shaping Western culture, and “has inspired some of the great monuments of human thought, literature, and art”.

The canon of books has been fairly stable, although it has expanded to include more women and racial minorities, while the canons of music and the visual arts have greatly expanded to cover the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries once largely overlooked. But some examples of newer media such as cinema have attained a precarious position in the canon. Also during the twentieth century there has been a growing interest in the West as well as globally, in major works, both in literature and in the other arts, of the cultures of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America and the former colonies of European countries.

There has been an ongoing debate internationally, over the nature and status of the canon since at least the 1960s, much of which is rooted in critical theory, feminism, critical race theory, and Marxism. In particular, postmodern studies have argued that the body of scholarship is biased because the traditional main focus of academic studies of Western culture and history has only been on works produced by Western men.

In painting, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–1506, is the archetypal masterpiece, though it was not produced for admission to a guild or academy.

A classic is a book, or any other work of art, accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy, for example through an imprimatur such as being listed in a list of great books, or through a reader’s personal opinion. Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature, music and art, etc. from all traditions, such as the Chinese classics or the Vedas. A related word is masterpiece or chef d’œuvre, which in modern use refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person’s career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill, or workmanship. Historically, the word refers to a work of a very high standard produced in order to obtain membership of a Guild or Academy.

The first writer to use the term “classic” was Aulus Gellius, a 2nd-century Roman writer who, in the miscellany Noctes Atticae, refers to a writer as a classicus scriptor, non proletarius (“A distinguished, not a commonplace writer”). Such classification began with the Greeks’ ranking their cultural works, with the word canon (ancient Greek κανών, kanṓn: “measuring rod, standard”). Moreover, early Christian Church Fathers used canon to rank the authoritative texts of the New Testament, preserving them, given the expense of vellum and papyrus and mechanical book reproduction, thus, being comprehended in a canon ensured a book’s preservation as the best way to retain information about a civilization. Contemporarily, the Western canon defines the best of Western culture. In the ancient world, at the Alexandrian Library, scholars coined the Greek term Hoi enkrithentes (“the admitted”, “the included”) to identify the writers in the canon.

With regard to books, what makes a book “classic” has concerned various authors, from Mark Twain to Italo Calvino, and questions such as “Why Read the Classics?”, and “What Is a Classic?” have been considered by others, including Calvino, T. S. Eliot, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Michael Dirda, and Ezra Pound.

The terms “classic book” and Western canon are closely related concepts, but are not necessarily synonymous. A “canon” is a list of books considered to be “essential”, and it can be published as a collection (such as Great Books of the Western World, Modern Library, Everyman’s Library, or Penguin Classics), presented as a list with an academic’s imprimatur (such as Harold Bloom’s,) or be the official reading list of a university.

Some of the writers who are generally considered the most important in Western literature are Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, François Rabelais, Jean Racine, Molière, Miguel de Cervantes, Michel de Montaigne, Lope de Vega, John Milton, Samuel Johnson, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Stendhal, Ivan Turgenev, Walt Whitman, Gustave Flaubert, Emily Dickinson, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Sigmund Freud, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Thomas Mann, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Mikhail Bulgakov, Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Vladimir Nabokov, Fernando Pessoa, Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett.

You might be able to make a little side bet money by setting up a pool to guess how many of this list of the Classic Western writers Trump.45 has ever read, and making sure you kept the numbers from 0 to 5 for yourself. Talk about House Odds. Ha, ha!