President Donald Trump’s incessant usage of Twitter has provided for some noteworthy moments like early this Wednesday when he furiously attempted to deny press reporting that he’d wanted to put a “moot” on the southern border. In reality, the reporting had been that he’d wanted to put a moat at the border, and Trump eventually deleted his latest typo tweet and reposted the message — but not before people could scratch their heads in confusion. The Dictionary.com Twitter account shared early Wednesday that searches for “moot” had spiked — and thus, something as basic as the dictionary again became a counter to the flailing ramblings of the president of the United States.
They posted:
‘Searches for “moot” have on [skyrocketed] http://Dictionary.com this morning. When something is moot, it’s open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful.’
Searches for “moot” have 🚀 on https://t.co/OeJELgy3YL this morning.
When something is moot, it’s open to discussion or debate; debatable; doubtful. https://t.co/XDQO8z2fzc
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) October 2, 2019
This is not the first time that dictionary companies — yes, dictionary companies — have ended up in the position of countering the president of the United States. Just recently, the Merriam-Webster Twitter account posted definitions of hyphens and apostrophes after the president mixed up the two in an angry, petty Twitter message about media reporting on his nickname for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Trump had complained that media reporting had removed the “hyphen” from the nickname Liddle’ Adam Schiff. To be clear, neither Liddle’ nor Liddle are real English words — but Trump was not deterred! Remember, this is the president of the United States we’re talking about.
The Merriam-Webster account posted in response:
‘For those looking up punctuation early on a Friday morning: A hyphen is a mark – used to divide or to compound words. An apostrophe is a mark ‘ used to indicate the omission of letters or figures.’
It’s true. The mark that Trump had included and then media reports had allegedly excluded was an apostrophe, not a hyphen. And it’s also true that the Trump administration has veered so wildly off the rails into bonkersville that we’re having this conversation in the first place…
Check out Twitter’s response…