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Friday, July 17, 2020

IDLE THOUGHTS


Donald Trump’s speech patterns are quite strange and unnatural. I am not talking about the content of what he says so much as the way he uses words. He frequently treats words as though they were objects, not as syntactic components in sentences designed to communicate thoughts. I have long thought that he is probably dyslexic and that his father treated him brutally because of that disability. Consequently, I was interested to read that Mary Trump somewhere in her book (I have not looked at it) describes her uncle as having an undiagnosed case of dyslexia.

My favorite example of dyslexia is from the movie “Jack Reacher” starring Tom Cruise. The movie is made from one of the novels by Lee Childs in which Jack Reacher is the main character. In the novel, Reacher is described as being 6’5” tall. Tom Cruise is 5’6” tall. I have always thought that the casting director was dyslexic.

2 comments:

marcel proust said...

He frequently treats words as though they were objects, not as syntactic components in sentences designed to communicate thoughts.


“When I use a word,’ [Donald Trump] said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said [Donald Trump], ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

(with apologies to Lewis Carroll and Through the Looking Glass)

jeffrey g kessen said...

That's good, but I would go a bit deeper. "When I think a thought", says poor Donald scornfully, "I think without thought". Joe Biden: "Aahh, yeah, me to---at least I think I do."