Trump’s a Liddle’ Scary
The president’s linguistic life is as oral as that of a medieval artisan.
by John McWhorter
Sep 27, 2019
4 minutes
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Andrew Jackson was fitfully educated at best, and yet strove to write letters of a certain fluency, as in this missive of 1824: “I have some little leisure time on my hand, when it is a pleasure to me, to hear from, & to answer my friends. It will allways afford me pleasure I assure you, to hear from you.” Dictating or not, Jackson had a sense that in public, language was to be gowned in its Sunday best.
Andrew Johnson’s parents were illiterate, and he was all but uneducated, having apprenticed as a tailor before getting into politics. However, his wife instructed him in the basics of writing, and as an adult
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